 In a lawsuit begun in 1806, Jackey Wright of Mathews County was granted her freedom from prominent landowner Holder Hudgins due to her grandmother's Native American ancestry in one of the last cases decided by Judge George Wythe, with a Virginia Supreme Court opinion by St. George Tucker.During the American Civil War, many white men from Mathews County enlisted in the Confederate Army.Some Union sympathizers petitioned President Abraham Lincoln for help, alleging that Confederate sympathizers had harassed them.