On May 29, 1861, the capital of the Confederacy was moved form the state capital of Alabama to the state capital of Virginia, in order be to be closer to the primary areas of conflict along the Mason Dixon line. As a result of the move, the city of Montgomery remained virtually untouched by conflict during the war. It was not until after the Battle of Selma, April 12, 1865, which was four years and a day after the Confederate Secretary of War sent a telegraph requesting Fort Sumter to vacate the confederate owned fort and three days after General Robert Edward Lee’s surrender at Appatomattox, that the Union army first arrived at the city of Montgomery. Major General James Harrison Wilson and his Wilson’s Raiders captured the city of Montgomery for the Union and moved on eastward to Columbus, Georgia on April 14, 1865, the day John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
In present day, a historical marker indicates where the Wilson’s Raiders raised the United States flag over Montgomery, Alabama.
Hamilton Historical Records 