Political Career
After the war, Wells settled in Richmond as a lawyer. He served as the appointed Governor of Virginia from April 4, 1868 and September 21, 1869 from. His term as Governor focused on drafting a new state constitution for Virginia. Wells's version would have granted African Americans the right to vote but would have disenfranchised Confederate veterans. Ulysses S. Grant intervened and protected the voting rights of the Confederate veterans.
After winning large majorities in the 1866 Congfressional election, the Radical Republicans in Congress took full charge. They closed down the state's civilian government and put Virginia (and nine other ex-Confederate states) under military rule. Virginia was administered as the "First Military District" in 1867-69 under General John Schofield. Schofield appointed his friend Wells as provisional governor. The national government held elections in Virginia 1869 that included a vote on the new state constitution, a separate one on its disfranchisement clause that would have stripped the vote from most former rebels, and a separate vote for state officials. The Army enrolled the Freedmen (ex-slaves). The Republicans nominated Wells. The leader of the opposition "True Republicans" was William Mahone (1826–1895), a railroad president and former Confederate general who said it was time for a New Departure for the state's Conservative Party (it later merged with the Democratic party). That is, whites had to accept the results of the war, including civil rights and the vote for Freedmen. Mahone's candidate for governor Gilbert C. Walker won support from the Conservatives was defeated Wells in 1869 and the disfranchisement clause was defeated. Virginia as a result did not experience the political conflicts that characterized the Reconstruction period in other southern states, yet white Virginians generally came to share the bitterness so typical of the southern attitudes. Virginia was thus the only southern state not to have a civilian Radical government.
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