The Trail That Led to Appomattox

Looking Back As the 70th Anniversary of the Burning of Richmond Nears

By Georgia Dickinson Wardlaw

Two unforgettable events in the annals of Virginia's history, and that of the South's and nation's as well, will pass in review before the minds of all theose who cherish Confederate traditions, when the seventieth anniversary of the burning of Richmond is commemorated on April 3 --- and that of General Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9.

What were the series of events which led up to these two heartbreaking happenings? Let us improvise a Confederate calendar of our own. It presents a pageant in years -- a pageant of color and horrible darkness; of high courage and deep fears; of bravado and laughter; of prayers and tears. And finally, of a fine tradition of ashes and surrender, ere the dawn of a new day was to vindicate Virginia's and the South's stand, and make of their history an immortal story.

The date of April 17, 1861 passes before us. After weeks of deliberation, the Virginia Secession Convention has finally passed the Ordinance of Secession. Already the Confederacy has been organized at Montgomery, Alabama, with Jefferson Davis elected President. The bombardment of Fort Sumter has occurred; President Lincoln has sounded his clarion call for 75,000 troops, and has called on Virginia for her quota.

April 23, 1861. Action has followed deliberation. A son of Virginia has resigned his commission in the United States Army and is made commander-in-chief of the Virginia troops. A momentous event in the life of the South--of Virginia---of the man---Robert Edward Lee. On May 29, Richmond is made the Capital of the Confederacy.

1861-65. Years of hideous warfare--horrible struggle and suffering--unforgettable battles written in blood and tears. From Manassas to Chancellorsville-the Wilderness to Petersburg--a great and gallant good and godly man leads his men bravely on--Robert E. Lee. Victory after victory he wins on the field of battle, until the gaps in his depleted army can no longer resist the onslaught of the enemy.

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April 2, 1865. Sunday morning, and Jefferson Davis is seated in his accustomed pew in old St. Paul's Episcopal Chuch, Richmond. A courier enters, and hands Davis a message that history has carried to the four corners of the globe. From General Lee--"My lines have broken around Petersburg. I can no longer defend Richmond."

Midnight, April 2-3, 1865. The greatest tragedy in the history of Richmond begins. Before the evacuation of the city by Confederate troops, magazines containing military stores of all kinds are set on fire by the retiring Confederates. By dawn, the flames fanned by a merciless wind, have spread rapidly, and the fire has eaten its way up to the old State Court Building--destroying everything within its wake. Into beleaguered Richmond--a seething cauldron--march detachments of the conquering Union Army, Federal soldiers assisting in the work of fighting the flames. Richmond lay in ashes.

April 9, 1865. Robert E. Lee meets Ulysses S. Grant at a little place called Appomattox, where the terms for the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia are arranged. A gallant general returns home, weary and dispirited. He is astride the faithful Traveller. In defeat he is a strange victor--long to endure in the hearts of his countrymen.

Out of this pageant of years--this picture of human emotions--there stands in bold relief a vision of Richmond as she was before the dawn of April 3, 1865, when she lay in ashes, charred and desolate.

Let us go far back to the turn of the nineteenth century when we have an excellent pen-picture of the town of William Byrd's founding, in William Wirt's celebrated "Letters of a British Spy" (published in the Virginia Argus in 1803). He writes:

"Richmond occupies a very picturesque and most beautiful situation. I have never met with such an assemblage of striking and interesting objects. The town, dispersed over hills of various shapes; the river, descending from west to east, and obstructed by a multitude of small islands, clumps of trees, and myriads of rocks, constituting what are called "the Falls'; the same river, at the lower end of town, bending at right angles to the south, and winding reluctantly off for many miles in that direction, its polished surface caught here and there by the eye, but more generally covered from the view by trees, among which the white sails of approaching and departing vessels exhibit a curious and interesting appearance; then again, on the opposite side, the little town of Manchester (now South Richmond), built on a hill which sloping gently to the river, opens the whole town to view, interspersed as it is, with vigorous and flourishing poplars, and surrounded to a great distance by green plains and stately woods--all these subjects, falling at once under the eye, constitute by far the most finely varied and most animated landscape that I have ever seen."

As far back as 1821, when Richmond was but a town of 12,000 population, Thackeray, on his visit here called it "the merriest place in America." It must have been a fair and pleasant place in those days, with stately homes standing comfortably apart, their wide verandas overlooking sloping lawns and brilliant beds of flowers--with always a sweeping panorama of the winding James and Richmond's Seven Hills!

There were schools of culture and learning within its confines, and a social life undimmed in brilliance by any of her numerous sister-towns and cities.

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In 1860 Richmond had been a name. It was the war that made her a symbol. The bitterly fought battles of 1862-63 had made the defense of Richmond the all-important object of Confederate strategy, and Richmond's tradition, therefore, had its birth and being in her valiant fight against a vastly superior, and far better equipped enemy, and in her heroic efforts to defend her gates from the entrance of the foe.

On walks where beautiful women had once strolled arm in arm, their faces shaded from the sun by fetching parasols and gay bonnets; in streets where the Richmond gentry had ridden by on their spirited steeds, or driven in stately carriages, drawn by handsome blooded horses in pairs and fours--there now tramped soldiers by the thousands; wagons filled with military stores and foodstuffs; ambulances carrying the wounded and dying; hurried couriers bringing welcome, dreaded news; the slow funeral dirge as Stonewall Jackson's body is borne through the town, while thousands follow in awe and grief.

Hospitals appeared on every hill on every corner, and where in happier days the eye had turned to the James, where there gleamed the white sails of passing barges of square-rigged days, there now loomed the dreaded approach of the gray of battleships. To calm their fears and steady their shattered nerves, Richmond women plied the needle as if by magic; nursed the wounded and sent them on their way again.

But perhaps it was ever written in the stars that the trail must ultimately lead to Appomattox. Where thousands of Richmond business men and women enter their houses of business today on Main Street, there marched, on that fateful morning of April 3, 1865, the first regiment of Federal soldiers to enter Richmond, she had come to take possession of the city. Mayor Mayo, of Richmond, had ridden with a committee of Citizens about a mile beyond the city limits, and there met the Federal troops under the command of Major-General Weitzel, who was marching his army toward the city to take possession. Mayor Mayo requested General Weitzel to occupy the city as quickly as possible, restore order, and protect the women and children.

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During the last year of the conflict, the civilian population of Richmond had suffered the real throes of war. Confederate money had become practically worthless; food supplies, drugs, and daily necessities had become increasingly scarce, while the wounded, and dependent women and children, presented a grave problem. The Richmond "bread riot" of April, 1862, had been quelled only after the threat of arms. And during the last fateful year of the war--1865--flour had sold in Richmond for $400 a barrel; turkeys from $50 to $100 each. What the high courage and soldierly astuteness of General Lee could not help had happened; and Union Blockade of the Confederate States had been effective--Southern manpower had been depleated and footstuffs had passed practically beyond the range of human procurance.

The war at last over, Richmond still suffered. General Ord, the Federal commander, appointed a Relief Commission which divided the city into 30 districts. Within 17 days, no less than 128,132 ration tickets were issued, entitling the holders to beef, pork, fish, cornmeal or flour, sugar and tea. On May 2 General Dent, who had become the Military Governor of Richmond, wrote to General Grant, "there is a starving multitude here." General Halleck of June 22 reported that there were 30,000 Negroes in the town idle and destitute.

Into such a city of suffering and sorrows, General Lee had returned, mounted on Traveller, and accompanied by several members of his staff, from Appomattox on April 15. Little wonder that a neighbor wrote "he looked tired and dispirited." But when recognized by the bluecoated Northern soldiers, who held the destitute city, the air rang with resounding cheers, for the gallant Virginian as he rode through the streets to his home. What today is headquarters of the Virginia Historical Society at 707 East Franklin Street, was the shelter of quiet and peace to which Lee returned, after the horrible carnage of four years of war.