DK - The American Civil War

THE FALL OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND

Following the fall of Richmond, the

Confederacy became a country and a

cause without a capital. Lee’s retreating

army was its only remaining bulwark.

EVACUATING RICHMOND

Jefferson Davis used the city’s last rail link

to escape to Danville, 130 miles (210km) to

the southwest, where he issued a defiant

promise to continue the struggle.

LINCOLN’S TRIUMPH

In contrast, Abraham Lincoln who happened

to be visiting the Army of the Potomac when

Richmond fell, traveled into the city barely a

day after Davis had left it. He was welcomed as

a liberator by the city’s black population. “You

are free, free as air,” the President told them. But

Lincoln would die within two weeks 320–21 ❯❯.

LAST BATTLES

Lee hoped to escape with his army to the

Danville area and fight on, but the move was

blocked by Grant 316–17 ❯❯. With this, Lee

had no option left but to surrender.

day, Philip Sheridan’s horsemen
confronted General George E. Pickett’s
division at a crossroads known as
Five Forks, 20 miles (32km) southwest
of Petersburg.
Sheridan dispatched the Fifth Corps
of the Army of the Potomac under
Major General Gouverneur K. Warren
with orders to attack the Confederate
left flank. Despite confusion in the
plan’s execution, the pincer attack
worked. By 7 p.m., Pickett’s force
had collapsed, with half the men
surrendering and the rest taking flight.
The Union breakthrough had finally
been achieved.

The defeat at Five Forks,

sometimes called the “Waterloo

of the Confederacy,” threatened

Lee’s last remaining lines of

communication to the west and

south and his position was

untenable. The next morning,

April 2, he sent word to

Jefferson Davis that Petersburg would

fall and that when it did, Richmond

itself would have to be abandoned.

As it happened, the message had

barely reached the Southern

president, who was attending a

Sunday-morning church service at

the time, when Grant’s men launched

an all-out attack along Lee’s lines at

Petersburg. The Confederates

resisted, but only as a holding action

designed to give the army time to

withdraw in some semblance of order

from the beleaguered city. By the

following morning, Petersburg was

in Union hands.

The fall of Richmond

With Petersburg fallen, Richmond

could not be defended. As soon as Lee

had telegraphed Jefferson Davis that

April 2 morning to abandon the city,

the evacuation had commenced.

Orders were given to torch everything

of military or strategic value.

After the civil authorities had

departed, the city was unpoliced and

the conflagrations spread uncontrolled

until the first Union detachments

arrived next morning to accept the

city’s formal surrender and to begin

dousing the flames. By then, much

of the Southern capital was in ruins;

an estimated 25 percent of its

buildings had burned down, and

remaining hopes for the Confederacy

lay smoldering.

AFTER

LINCOLN IN RICHMOND

Evacuation order
Jefferson Davis’s order to evacuate the Confederate
capital was issued on April 2. He and various members
of his cabinet abandoned the city that night, heading
by train for Danville, Virginia.

Richmond in flames

Confederate troops destroyed the city’s arsenals and

factories before they fled. The explosions started fires in

residential areas, and all night long the citizens rushed

away in “every description of cart, carriage, and vehicle.”

“We took Richmond at 8:15

this morning ... The enemy left

in great haste ... ”

UNION GENERAL GODFREY WEITZEL, IN A TELEGRAM TO GRANT, APRIL 3, 1865