In Winchester, a mass meeting of area Unionists protests the return of Confederates to office in Virginia
The week before, the Virginia legislature eased restrictions on former Confederates re-entering government. Enraged and worried state Unionists held a mass meeting in Winchester, Virginia to protest "extending the right of suffrage to former rebels and their aiders and abettors." As feared, former Confederates soon returned to city and state offices across the state, often setting up conflict with Union authorities. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Hamilton James Eckenrode,The Political History of Virginia During the Reconstruction (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1904), 320.