Civil War, Reconstruction, and Remembrance on the Banks of the Potomac

“Many hamlets and towns have been destroyed during the war. But of all that in some form survive, Alexandria has most suffered….Its streets, its docks, its warehouses, its dwellings, and its suburbs have been absorbed to the thousand uses of war.”

—George Albert Townsend, New York Herald, April 1863

“[T]he old school-house in Alexandria is the headquarters for the women. This I thought the most wretched of all the places. Anyone who can find an apology for slavery should visit this place and learn its curse.”

—Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, writing in The Liberator, September 1862

How could I not return to Civil War Alexandria?

But it was time to deve further.

I wrote about Alexandria principally through the eyes of relief worker Julia Wilbur. That made sense, it was a biography of her. But that limited me in two ways. First, although I did provide more context, it was mostly her experience. Second, and more to the point, she moved from Alexandria to Washington in February 1865.

When the 1860s began, Alexandria, Virginia—once home to George Washington, now a suburb of Washington, DC—was the ninth-largest city in the South.

The city of 12,000 people had one of the largest free Black populations in the South—and also one of the nation’s most profitable slave-trading businesses. During the war, thousands of Northern soldiers and civilians thronged the city, along with an estimated 8,000 Black men, women, and children escaping slavery. Almost every major battle in the East was felt in its encampments, hospitals, and prisons. After the war, through Freedmen’s Bureau activity, Black and White political organizing, and violence, Alexandria was a microcosm for both the possibilities and dashed hopes of Reconstruction.

ALEXANDRIA ON THE EDGE: War, Reconstruction, and Remembrance on the Edge of the Potomac provides a user-friendly lens to understand this period in our nation’s history and its impact today.

Expected publication: September 2027, Georgetown University Press. Subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on social media, or check back here for updates.