On February 18, 1865, Charleston, South Carolina — the spiritual capital of the Confederacy and the cradle of secession — surrendered to Union troops. The first federal unit to enter the conquered city was the Twenty-First United States Colored Infantry Regiment. Men, some of whom who had not long before been South Carolina slaves, returned as emancipators.

Leading a column down the main thoroughfare, a mounted black soldier carried a banner proclaiming, simply, “Liberty.” As Union troops strode through the streets, black residents flocked to their side. Two weeks later they celebrated freedom with a massive procession of their own. Among the revelers were almost two thousand children who sang the lyrics to the abolitionist marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Local whites wondered aloud “whether they are actually in another world, or whether this one is turned wrong side out.”

Within six weeks, similar scenes greeted the entry of the Army of the Potomac into Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy’s capital. General Godfrey Weitzel, commander of the Twenty-Fifth Corps of the United States Colored Troops, accepted the city’s formal surrender. Black cavalry troopers brandished their sabers and cheered triumphantly. As they surged into Richmond, former slaves stood atop shacks and waved their hats and cheered while well-to-do whites retreated into their homes, bolted their doors, and peered anxiously, indignantly, and incredulously through shuttered windows.