Richmond falls...!


After his troops broke through the Confederate defenses near St. Petersburg, the Commander-in-Chief of the Union Siege Army, General Ulysses Grant ...



... sets out to occupy the federal capital, Richmond!

When the southerners realize that the already badly destroyed city ...



... can no longer be held militarily, set fire to the heap of rubble ...



... and who can flee on the only open way, the bridge over the James River to the south ...:



In the midst of the stream of refugees is Confederation President Jefferson Davis - disguised as a woman ...:



Confederate rear guards then blow up the bridge!



Then on April 3, 1865, the Union soldiers marched into the city - General Grant in the lead ...:



As the next imaginative lithograph shows, Grant is alleged to have personally proclaimed their freedom on the street to the blacks who were mostly back in Richmond - much to the annoyance of the few whites who had also not fled ...:



The fire did the rest - Richmond is mostly ruins ...:







A single building has remained undamaged, the Capitol, the seat of the Confederate Parliament ...:





This is where Grant sets up his headquarters.





The mood between the occupiers and the occupied is icy, as the next figure shows it quite correctly ...:



When the next day, April 4th, Union President Abraham Lincoln visited the conquered city with his son Tad, he needed a strong bodyguard - otherwise he would have been approached on the street ...:



The agony of the south will continue for a week - the war in Appomattox will end on April 9th...:



Confederation President Davis will arrest Union henchmen on May 10th - even then disguised as a woman ...



Union President Lincoln will not live to see this event - he will be assassinated a few days after the Confederate surrender on April 15, 1865 ...

I'm gonna dig out my "Gone With The Wind" DVD now

Good post Martin, especially like some of the lithographs which are new to me.

Phil

"Ooooh Ashley...!"