After historian Nelson D. Lankford finished writing the 2002 book “Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital,” he changed direction and wrote his next book about the last weeks of peace before the Civil War began.

But he’d always wondered what had happened after the evacuation fire.

It took a few years, but he finally decided to scratch that burning itch and answer the question. His new book, “After the Fire: Richmond in Defeat” (University of Virginia Press) flowed organically from its predecessors, albeit with a longer gestation period. Lankford will discuss that book on Thursday, Jan. 22 at the American Civil War Museum.

In trying to understand what happened, Lankford sought to examine as many primary sources, or documents written at the time, as possible. Some of them, especially newspapers, were digitized and online. But many more haven’t been copied and required him visiting the archives where they reside, places such as the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, the Library of Virginia, and the Library of Congress.

More weight was given to anything written at the time, such as letters and diaries. Although he saw the value of memoirs and books written later, those sources carried less weight than what was written contemporaneously, when the writer was clueless about what might occur down the road. “People in 1865 didn’t know what would happen the next month or year, any more than we can know what will happen next in our own time,” says Lankford. “Primary sources let the author capture that contingency, that inability to discern what will unfold next.”

His approach was to give voice to as many factions as possible: Black people, the minority of white Unionists, the majority of Confederates, the Union army stationed in Richmond. “It’s through viewing the kaleidoscope of different views [that] we can begin to grasp the full sweep of opinions, hopes, and aspirations of the people who lived through that turbulent time in our city’s history,” he explains.

Finding food and work

While there’s a common misconception about Richmond being burned to the ground, only about 10% of the city burned. Unfortunately, that 10% accounted for nine-tenths of the city’s jobs and wealth. Because the fire also consumed most food supplies, the immediate need was finding a way to put bread on the table for hungry families.

“The Union army fed most of the civilian population during the first weeks, but that support didn’t last,” he says. “A scramble for work preoccupied most people in the immediate postwar months.”

Eventually, the holy trinity of iron, flour and tobacco production dominated employment in the River City. “But rebuilding took time for three reasons: The fire consumed most insurance records, and capital was scarce; most importantly, uncertainty about whether Confederate-owned property would be confiscated delayed rebuilding,” Lankford explains.

When the Union army marched in, the business district burned and slavery officially ended. But what did practical emancipation mean? The right to vote? Equality before the law? Civil rights? The uncertainty that hung over these topics as Richmond rebuilt civil society meant that they weren’t decided for some time.

Finding work and food absorbed the attention of all Richmonders, no matter their ethnicity. “But as soon as the war ended, Black Richmonders began building a parallel community based on the churches and charitable organizations they’d founded in secret before the war,” says Lankford. “They would soon use those institutions to begin striving for full equality, and that struggle would define politics in the early postwar years.”

The more he researched, the more Lankford was awed by the resilience of Richmonders and their hopes for the future. With their cause in ruins, white Richmonders who supported the Confederacy picked themselves up after defeat and rebuilt their lives, to greater or lesser degrees. But what the author found even more impressive was the optimism of Black Richmonders, whose striving for equality manifested itself publicly in the parade marking the first anniversary of the evacuation fire.

“I ended the book with the hope for the biracial democracy promised by the 1870 constitution,” Lankford says. “That promise wasn’t fulfilled, as the grim era of Jim Crow descended later in the century. But people in the late-1860s could not know that outcome.”

He sees “After the Fire” as presenting the complex interplay of competing groups that unfolded in the aftermath of total social upheaval. The world Richmonders knew literally went up on flames. No one could predict what would replace it when the smoke cleared.

Lankford’s goal with the book was to evoke the vanished world of privation, defeat, jubilation, false starts, engrained antagonism and the lost causes of Confederate nostalgia and racial reconciliation.

“It attempts to understand the perspectives of many Richmonders, not just political leaders but ordinary citizens trying to shape the postwar landscape” he says. “It does so at a time of great expectation among the freed people and of great apprehension among most white residents. I hope [the book] puts the reader in the shoes of those who lived through that uncertain time.”

A book talk with Nelson D. Lankford on “After the Fire: Richmond in Defeat” will be held on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 6 p.m. at the American Civil War Museum, 480 Tredegar Street. Tickets