Conestoga Train Enters Petersburg

First Union wagon train entering the city of Petersburg, with provisions after the Rebels were forced to evacuate, Petersburg, Virginia, 1865. The City was key to Union plans to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond; it saw 9 months of trench warfare during the 1864-65. First Federal wagon train entering the town. During the War, Petersburg was the second largest city in Virginia, and the seventh-largest city in the Confederacy. Its 1860 population was 18,266, half of whom were black. Free blacks numbered 3,224 (one-third) and had been attracted to the city for the opportunities in industries and trades. Petersburg's population had the highest percentage of free African Americans of any city in the Confederacy and the largest number of free blacks in the Mid-Atlantic. (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images)