After four years of bloody fighting, the war that had torn apart the United States and Virginia finally reached its conclusion in the commonwealth. In one of the most eventful and fateful months in American history, April 1865 would see the fall of Richmond to Union troops, Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the end of the Confederacy, the Civil War and slavery.

It was the birthing cry of a nation, and 240 years later, Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech still resonates.