Day 33. April 2, 1862.
33
there came a feeling as of swinging bells….
and he was directed by negroes….
April Wensday 2 1862
Quite cool this morning and the sun came up quite clear and all appearance of a spring morning and a fine day. We are camped at Winchester at the South end on the right side. Things look as if spring had come and the cold weather passed away. There was quite a string of wagons went out towards Strausburg. Our boys are engaging themselves now and I hope we may have a good time and may soon have some goods news from some other point of some new victories and may soon have our land rid out of these fire eaters and this has been a pleasant day. I have not not received any news today and I am anxious to hear from home. Capt [illeg. looks like Benine] field officer today Lieut [illeg. looks like I.L. Hay] camp officer
Note: Above is an envelope currently for sale on eBay.
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 104
“April 2, 1862: Lincoln writes to Michael Crock of Philadelphia: “Allow me to thank you in behalf of my little son for your present of White Rabbits. He is very much pleased with them.”
A Yankee Spy in Richmond Elizabeth Van Lew P. 104-106
“April 2, 1865
Towards the close of the day [Sunday], the young soldiers could be seen on horseback or on foot bidding hurried farewells to their friends. Some said they must go, though they wished to stay. Some said they would remain, but bodies to troops stationed here and there without the town, were hurried away– individual will knows only obedience in the army.
I went to the front door of a neighbor. On the steps a woman was sitting in speechless acquiescence. We spoke of the news. She knew only the evacuation of the city. “The war will end now,” I said. “The young men’s lives will be saved.”
“I have a son in the army about Petersburg,” she replied.
I sympathized with her and assured her she might hope for his life; that here would be an end of the terrible words, “the last man must die,” which were so often spoken and acted upon.
She replied, “It would be better, anything would be better, than to fall under the United States Government.”
It was useless to talk with her. Night came on; we could hear the hurried leaving. Word was sent us that our house was to be burned; some soldiers had said so.
Our wheel barrow was borrowed; plate, papers, gold, jewelry, forced in upon us for security. The bursting shells rent the air and lighted the darkness. Midnight passed, the door bell rang. Two fugitives came from Castle Thunder. How alarmed now were the officials there! The wicked Wiley, deadly pale and trembling in every limb, unlocked, by order, the cell doors to make sure of the inmates. These prisoners were secured and carried through the streets to be hurried South. Some, availing themselves of the confusion in the city, broke away from their keepers and, at intervals, found their way to our dwelling, to be gladly welcomed; but with the terror yet upon us, we were afraid to have a fight in the room they were in. Some men I knew among the prisoners escaped from their guards and, though they lived in Richmond, wandered off about fifteen miles into the country, so afraid were they of arrest. One feeble man was made to walk fifty miles before escaping, but as the distance from Richmond increased, the guards relaxed their vigilance, thinking more of self preservation. One woman confined as a spy was obliged to walk thirty-two miles when she succeeded in eluding them, and in due time made her appearance at our house.
The constant explosion of shells, the blowing up of the gun boats, and of the powder magazine, seemed to jar, shake the earth, and lend a mighty language to the scene. All nature trembled at the work of arbitrary power, the consummation of the wrongs of years. The burning bridges, the roaring flames added a wild grandeur to the scene.
Amidst all this turmoil, quietly, noiselessly, the Federal army entered the city. There were wild bursts of welcome from the negroes and many whites as they poured in. In an incredibly short space of time, as by magic, every part of the city was under the most kind and respectful of guards.
The Federal soldiers, immediately on entrance, went to work to arrest the progress of the flames. Had it not been for them, the whole city would have been a map of smouldering ruins. Hundreds of houses had fallen victim to the spreading fires. The loss of public and private property was immense. Our beautiful flour mills, the largest in the world and the pride of our city, were destroyed. Square after square of stores, dwelling houses and factories, warehouses, banks, hotels, bridges, all wrapped in fire, filled the sky with clouds of smoke as incense from the land for its deliverance. What a moment! Avenging wrath appeased in flames! The chains, the shackles fell from thousands of captives, and thousands of arms fell powerless to wield the Christianizing lash. Civilization advanced a century. Justice, truth, humanity were vindicated. Labor was now without manacles, honored and respected. No wonder that the walls of our houses were swaying; the heart of our city a flaming altar, as this mighty word was done.
The wonderful deliverance wrought out for the negro; they feel but cannot tell you, but when eternity shall unknot the records of time, you will see written for them by the Almighty their unpenned stories, then to be read before a listening universe. Bottled are their tears on His ear.”
Note: And still ahead to this day, 1865:
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Harold Holzer P. 1124-1131
THE FALL OF RICHMOND.
I. The Evacuation.
Clement Sulivane, Captain, C.S.A.
“About 11:30 A.M. on Sunday, April 2d, a strange agitation was perceptible on the streets of Richmond, and within half an hour it was known on all sides that Lee’s lines had been broken below Petersburg; that he was in full retreat on Danville; that the troops covering the city at Chaffin’s and Drewry’s Bluffs were on the point of being withdrawn, and that the city was forthwith to be abandoned. A singular security had been felt by the citizens of Richmond, so the news fell like a bombshell in a peaceful camp, and dismay reigned supreme.
All that Sabbath day the trains came and went, wagons, vehicles, and horsemen rumbled and dashed to and fro, and, in the evening, ominous groups of ruffians—more or less in liquor—began to make their appearance on the principal thoroughfares of the city. As night came on pillage and rioting and robbing took place. The police and a few soldiers were at hand, and, after the arrest of a few ringleaders and the more riotous of their followers, a fair degree of order was restored. But Richmond saw few sleeping eyes during the pandemonium of that night.
The division of Major-General G.W.C. Lee, of Ewell’s corps, at that time rested in the trenches eight miles below Richmond, with its right on the James River, covering Chaffin’s Bluff. I was at the time its assistant adjutant-general, and was in the city on some detached duty connected with the “Local Brigade” belonging to the division,—a force composed of the soldiers of the army, detailed on account of their mechanical skill to work in the arsenals, etc., and of clerks and other employés of the War, Treasury, Quartermaster, and other departments.
Upon receipt of the news from Petersburg I reported to General Ewell (then in Richmond) for instructions, and was ordered to assemble and command the Local Brigade, cause it to be well supplied with ammunition and provisions, and await further orders. All that day and night I was engaged in this duty, but with small result, as the battalions melted away as fast as they were formed, mainly under orders from the heads of departments who needed all their employés in the transportation and guarding of the archives, etc., but partly, no doubt, from desertions. When morning dawned fewer than 200 men remained, under command of Captain Edward Mayo.
Shortly before day General Ewell rode in person to my headquarters and informed me that he would destroy it and press on to join the main army; that all the bridges over the river had been destroyed, except Mayo’s between Richmond and Manchester, and that the wagon bridge over the canal in front of Mayo’s had already burned by Union emissaries. My command was to hasten to Mayo’s bridge and protect it, and the one remaining foot-bridge over the canal leading to it, until General Gary, of South Carolina, should arrive. I hurried to my command, and fifteen minutes later occupied Mayo’s bridge, at the foot of 14th street, and made military dispositions to protect it to the last extremity. This done, I had nothing to do but listen for sounds and gaze on the terrible splendor of the scene. And such a scene probably the world has seldom witnessed. Either incendiaries, or (more probably) fragments of bombs from the arsenals, had fired various buildings, and the two cities, Richmond and Manchester, were like a blaze of day amid the surrounding darkness. Three high arched bridges were in flames; beneath them the waters sparkled and dashed and rushed on by the burning city. Every now and then, as a magazine exploded, a column of white smoke rose up as high as the eye could reach, instantaneously followed by a deafening sound. The earth semed to rock and tremble as with the shock of an earthquake, and immediately afterward hundreds of shells would explode in air and send their iron spray down far below the bridge. As the immense magazines of cartridges ignited the rattle as of thousands of musketry would follow, then all was still for the moment, except the dull roar and crackle of the fast-spreading fires. At dawn we heard terrific explosions about “The Rocketts,” from the unfinished iron-clads down the river.
By daylight, on the 3d, a mob of men, women, and children, to the number of several thousands, had gathered at the corner of 14th and Cary streets and other outlets, in front of the bridge, attracted by the vast commissary depot at that point; for it must be remembered that in 1865 Richmond was a half-starved city, and the Confederate Government had that morning removed the guards and abandoned the removal of the provisions, which was impossible for the want of transportation. The depot doors were forced open and a demoniacal struggle for the countless barrels of hams, bacon, whisky, flour, sugar, coffee, etc., etc., raged about the buildings among the hungry mob. The gutters ran whisky, and it was lapped up as it flowed down the streets, while all fought for a share of the plunder. The flames came nearer and nearer, and at last caught in the commissariat itself.
At daylight the approach of the Union forces could be plainly discerned. After a little came the clatter of horses’ hoofs galloping up Main street. My infantry guard stood to arms, the picket across the canal was withdrawn, and the engineer officer lighted a torch of fat pine. By direction of the Engineer Department barrels of tar, surrounded by pine-knots, had been placed at intervals on the bridge, with kerosene at hand, and a lieutenant of engineers had reported for the duty of firing them at my order. The noisy train proved to be Gary’s ambulances, sent forward preparatory to his final rush for the bridge. The muleteers galloped their animals about half-way down, when they were stopped by the dense mass of human beings. Rapidly communicating to Captain Mayo my instructions from General Ewell, I ordered that officer to stand firm at his post until Gary got up. I rode forward into the mob and cleared a lane. The ambulances were galloped down to the bridge, I retired to my post, and the mob closed in after me and resumed its wild struggle for plunder. A few minutes later a long line of cavalry in gray turned into 14th street, and sword in hand galloped straight down to the river; Gary had come. The mob scattered right and left before the armed horsemen, who reined up at the canal. Presently a single company of cavalry appeared in sight, and rode at headlong speed to the bridge. “My rear-guard,” explained Gary. Touching his hat to me he called out, “All over, good-bye; blow her to h—ll,” and trotted over the bridge. That was the first and last time I ever saw of General Gary, of South Carolina.
In less than sixty seconds Captain Mayo was in column of march, and as he reached the little island about half-way across the bridge, the single piece of artillery, loaded with grape-shot, that had occupied that spot, arrived on the Manchester side of the river. The engineer officer, Dr. Lyons, and I walked leisurely to the island, setting fire to the provided combustible matter as we passed along, and leaving the north section of Mayo’s bridge wrapped in flame and smoke. At the island we stopped to take a view of the situation north of the river, and saw a line of blue-coated horsemen galloping in furious haste up Main street. Across 14th street they stopped, and then dashed down 14th street to the flaming bridge. They fired a few random shots at us three on the island, and we retreated to Manchester. I ordered my command forward, the lieutenant of engineers saluted and went about his business, and myself and my companion sat on our horses for nearly a half-hour, watching the occupation of Richmond. We saw another string of horsemen in blue pass up Main street, then we saw a dense column of infantry march by, seemingly without end; we heard the very welkin ring with cheers as the United States forces reached Capitol Square, and then we turned and slowly rode on our way.”
II. The Occupation.
Thomas Thatcher Graves, Aide-de-Camp on the Staff of Gen. Weitzel.
“In the spring of 1865 the total length of the lines of the Army of the James before Richmond (Under General Godfrey Weitzel, commanding the Twenty-fifth Corps) was about eleven miles, not not counting the cavalry front, and extended from the Appomattox River to the north side of the James. The Varina and New Market turnpikes passed directly through the lines into the city, which was the center of all our efforts.
About 2 o’clock on the morning of April 3d bright fires were seen in the direction of Richmond. Shortly after, while we were looking at these fires, we heard explosions, and soon a prisoner was sent in by General Kautz. The prisoner was a colored teamster, and he informed us that immediately after dark the enemy had begun making preparations to leave, and that they were sending all of the teams to the rear. A forward-movement of our entire picket-line corroborated this report. As soon as it was light General Weitzel ordered Colonel E.E. Graves, senior aide-de-camp, and Major Atherton H. Stevens, Jr., provost-marshal, to take a detachment of forty men from the two companies (E and H) of the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry, and make a reconnoissance. Slowly this little band of scouts picked their way in. Soon after we moved up the New Market road at a slow pace.
As we approached the inner line of defenses we saw in the distance divisions of our troops, many of them upon the double-quick, aiming to be the first in the city; a white and a colored division were having a regular race, the white troops on the turnpike and the colored in the fields. As we neared the city the fires seemed to increase in number and size, and at intervals loud explosions were heard.
On entering we found Capitol Square covered with people who had fled there to escape the fire and were utterly worn out with fatigue and fright. Details were at once made to scour the city and press into service every able-bodied man, white or black, and make them assist in extinguishing the flames. General Devens’s engineer company assisted by blowing up houses to check its advance, as about every single engine was destroyed or rendered useless by the mob. In this manner the fire was extinguished and perfect order restored in an incredibly short time after we occupied the city. There was absolutely no plundering upon the part of our soldiers; orders were issued forbidding anything to be taken without renumeration, and no complaints were made of infringement of these orders. General G.F. Shepley was placed on duty as military governor. He had occupied a similar position in New Orleans after its capture in 1862, and was eminently fitted for it by education and experience. As we entered the suburbs the general ordered me to take half a dozen cavalrymen and go to Libby Prison, for our thoughts were upon the wretched men whom we supposed were still confined within its walls. It was very early in the morning, and we were the first Union troops to arrive before Libby. Not a guard, not an inmate remained; the doors were wide open, and only a few negroes greeted us with, “Dey’s all gone, massa!”
The next day after our entry into the city, on passing out from Clay street, from Jefferson Davis’s house, I saw a crowd coming, headed by President Lincoln, who was walking with his usual long, careless stride, and looking about with an interested air and taking in everything. Upon my saluting, he said: “Is it far to President Davis’s house?” I accompanied him to the house, which was occupied by General Weitzel as headquarters. The President had arrived about 9 o’clock, at the landing called Rocketts, upon Admiral Porter’s flag-ship, the Malvern, and as soon as the boat was made fast, without ceremony, he walked on shore, and started off uptown. As soon as Admiral Porter was informed of it he ordered a guard of marines to follow as escort; but in the walk of about two miles they never saw him, and he was directed by negroes. At the Davis house, he was shown into the reception-room, with the remark that the housekeeper had said that that room was President Davis’s office. As he seated himself he remarked, “This must have been President Davis’s chair,” and, crossing his legs, he looked far off with a serious, dreamy expression. At length he asked me if the housekeeper was in the house. Upon learning that she had left he jumped up and said, with a boyish manner, “Come, let’s look at the house!” We went pretty much over it; I retailed all that the housekeeper had told me, and he seemed interested in everything. As we came down the staircase General Weitzel came, in breathless haste, and at once President Lincoln’s face lost its boyish expression as he realized that duty must be resumed. Soon afterward Judge Campbell, General Anderson (Confederates), and others called and asked for an interview with the President. It was granted, and took place in the parlor with closed doors.
I accompanied President Lincoln and General Weitzel to Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, and heard General Weitzel ask President Lincoln what he (General Weitzel) should do in regard to the conquered people. President Lincoln replied that he did not wish to give any orders on that subject, but, as he expressed it, “If I were in your place I’d let ’em up easy, let ’em up easy.”
A few days after our entry General R.E. Lee surrendered, and early one morning we learned that he had just arrived at his house in the city. General Weitzel called me into a private room, and, taking out a large, well-filled pocket-book, said, “Go to General Lee’s house, find Fitzhugh Lee, and say that his old West Point chum Godfrey Weitzel wishes to know if he needs anything, and urge him to take what he may need from that pocket-book.” Upon reaching General Lee’s house I knocked, and General Fitzhugh Lee came to the door. He was dressed in a Confederate uniform. Upon introducing myself he asked me in, showing me into a parlor with double or folding doors, explaining that the servants had not returned. He was so overcome by General Weitzel’s message that for a moment he was obliged to walk to the other end of the room. He excused himself, and passed into the inner room, where I noticed General R.E. Lee sitting, with a tired, worn expression upon his face. Fitzhugh Lee knelt beside his general, as he sat leaning over, and placed a hand upon his knee.
After a few moments he came back, and in a most dignified and courteous manner sent his love to Godfrey Weitzel, and assured him that he did not require any loan of money, but if it would be entirely proper for Godfrey Weitzel to issue a pass for some ladies of General Lee’s household to return to the city it would be esteemed a favor; but he impressed me to state that if this would embarrass General Weitzel, on no account would they request the favor. It is needless to state that the ladies were back in the house as soon as possible.”
Note: A note appears at the bottom of page 1128: “As one of our aides was riding through the streets, engaged in gathering together the able-bodied men to assist in extinguishing the fire, he was hailed by a servant in front of a house, toward which the fire seemed to be moving. The servant told him that his mistress wished to speak to him. He dismounted and entered the house, and was met by a lady, who stated that her mother was an invalid, confined to her bed, and as the fire seemed to be approaching she asked for assistance. The subsequent conversation developed the fact that the invalid was no other than the wife of General R.E. Lee, and the lady who addressed the aide was her daughter, Miss Lee. An ambulance was furnished by Colonel E.H. Ripley, of the 9th Vermont, and a corporal and two men guarded them until all danger was past.—T.T.G.”
Note: See sketches accompanying the above essay in Hearts Touched by Fire: President Lincoln leaving the Davis house, and Richmond citizens in Capitol Square during the “conflagration.”
Again, ahead to this day, 1865:
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (book) Edited by Harold Holzer P. 1171-1172
Note: This editor’s note appears as an adjunct to “Last Days of the Confederacy” by Basil W. Duke, Brigadier-General, C.S.A. See April 9 for excerpts from Duke’s essay. How the surrender went down:
“On Sunday, April 2d, on receipt of dispatches from General Lee that the army was about to evacuate the Petersburg and Richmond lines, Mr. Davis assembled his cabinet and directed the removal of the public archives, treasure, and other property to Danville, Virginia. The members of the Government left Richmond during the night of the 2d, and on the 5th Mr. Davis issued a proclamation stating that Virginia would not be abandoned. Danville was placed in a state of defense, and Admiral Raphael Semmes was appointed a brigadier-general in command with a force consisting of a naval brigade and two battalions of infantry. Upon the surrender of Lee and his army (April 9th), the Confederate Government was removed to Greensboro, North Carolina. On the 18th Mr. Davis and part of his cabinet and his personal staff, accompanied by a wagon-train containing the personal property of the members of the Government and the most valuable archives, started for Charlotte, North Carolina. On the 24th the terms of the convention between Generals Johnston and Sherman were approved by Mr. Davis as President of the Confederate States. –Editors”
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Edited by Harold Holzer P. 1062-1063
INTRODUCTION
James I. Robertson, Jr.
“As Grant started his pursuit of Lee’s army in the darkness of April 2, a great glow filled the air. Confederate officials in Richmond had ordered warehouses loaded with tobacco and government property put to the torch. Strong winds turned the flames into a raging inferno. More than eight hundred buildings in the capital were gutted. Ironically, black soldiers in Union general Godfrey Weitzel’s Twenty-fifth Corps finally brought the fires under control. The cremation of Richmond was a symbolic tragedy.”
Jefferson Davis’s Flight from Richmond: The Calm Morning, Lee’s Telegrams, the Evacuation, the Train, the Passengers, the Trip, the Arrival in Danville and the Historians’ Frauds John Stewart P. Footnote 14 (then various pages that are not numeralized in the original)
“The difference between a diarist and an eyewitness is that the diarist claims to have written entries in his diary, day by day, so that his memory is, at best, only 24 hours old at the time of writing. Whereas the eyewitness reports what he saw, generally in the form of of an article, and usually some time after the event. There is, of course, a third form of witness– the newsman. In the case of April 2-3, 1865, diarists and eyewitnesses have been crawling out of the woodwork ever since.”
Note: John Stewart then delves into several accounts of Jefferson Davis at St. Paul’s Church the morning of April 2, 1865. Here is a small sampling:
“Churchgoers bought pews in those days, and that’s where they would faithfully sit, kneel, and stand, Sunday after Sunday. As David Eicher says, in Dixie Betrayed (2006), that morning of April 2, 1865, the president sat in the Davis family pew, sans family. This is where he was when he received news of Lee’s 10:40 a.m. telegram. Ordnance man William L. Broun recounts, as quoted in the 1912 book by his son: “I was at St. Paul’s Church. About four pews in front of me sat President Davis; and in a pew behind me, Gorgas, chief of the ordnance department and my chief.”
The preacher, Dr. Minnigerode, did his best to press on with the service, but he had suddenly taken a distinct second place to temporal speculation, as more and more dignitaries were called out of the church.
The New York Daily Tribune of April 8, 1865, was the first to report what happened in church after Jefferson Davis had made his exit. Misled by false rumors of the sexton’s ethnic heritage, they indulged in colorful fiction: As the preacher closed the services, the colored sexton handed him a note from his ex-Excellency. The face of the preacher waxed, sickly, with despair, while that of the sexton with joy too great for concealment. The chagrin of the one was quite as marked as the grin of the other. The former begged his congregation to tarry and told them in sad utterance that he could not expect to minister to them anymore.
Much more true to events was the report in the Washington, D.C. paper, the Evening Star, of May 10, 1865: …immediately afterwards several prominent citizens were by the same sexton summoned to follow him [i.e., Davis].
C.E.L. Stuart, in his July 4, 1865, New York Herald article, has this: No telegram ever flashed through the electric wires more swiftly than this unspoken intelligence shot from eye to eye of that dismayed congregation. Had an unseen hand written the coming doom on the wall in letters of fire, the effect could not have been more appalling or more instantaneous. Or, as Nelson Lankford says, in his 2002 book, Richmond Burning: A navy clerk who was there, searching for a metaphor that could capture the shock of the moment, [said]: “Had an unseen hand written the coming doom on the wall in letters of fire, the effect could not have been more appalling or more instantaneous.” Lankford cites “C.E.L. Stuart, in New York Herald, July 4, cited in Ballard, A Long Shadow, p. 37.” This is, indeed, an exact quote from Stuart, but nowhere in his account does Stuart imply that he was in the church; in fact, on the contrary. It’s no good just reproducing quotes; one has to have some knowledge of the man who is reputed to have made them.
James Dabney McCabe, in his Life and Campaigns of Robert E. Lee (1866), wrote: “The agitation of the President caused a vague feeling of alarm throughout the congregation at St. Paul’s, and soon the church was emptied.
Sallie Brock, echoing Stuart, wrote, in 1867: An uneasy whisper ran through the congregation, and intuitively they seemed possessed of the dreadful secret of the sealed despatch– the unhappy condition of General Lee’s army and the necessity for evacuating Richmond. She also wrote these lines, in her poem of the same year:
And quicker than the lightning’s flash, then
through the crowd there ran,
A whisper, ominous of the woe, that on them was
to break;
And friend looked in the face of friend, and
man on man,
For light, for help,– that hope might not
their hopes forsake.”
This from Congressman Horatio Washington Bruce, in his 1881 “Recollections”: “I was not feeling very well that morning. I felt that something was going wrong with our cause when I saw the President withdraw; and this, in connection with the indisposition referred to, caused me also to retire from the church. As we shall see when it comes time to get on the train for Danville, Congressman Bruce spent a lot of time sleeping. If it took him until April 2, 1865, to see that something was going wrong with the Confederate cause, then perhaps he slept throughout the entire war.
The moment in time is captured in great detail by the preacher himself, the Reverent Dr. Minnigerode, writing in 1890, twenty-five years after the event. He tells us that on communion occasions he was wont to make a short address from the chancel, and on that occasion, while so doing, the sexton came in repeatedly and called out this one and that one, all connected with the government and military service. Of course the congregation became very restless and he tried to finish his address as soon as he could, without adding to the threatening panic. But when the sexton came to the chancel-railing and spoke to the Reverend Mr. Kepler, who assisted Mr. Minnigerode, they began to stir, and I closed as quickly as possible. Minnigerode is telling us very plainly that he was giving his address when all this happened. The address came right at the beginning of the service. Then Mr. Kepler told me the provost-marshal wanted to see me in the vestry room. So Minnigerode went out and found Major Isaac H. Carrington, who informed the minister that General Lee’s lines had been broken before Petersburg, that he was in retreat, and Richmond must be evacuated. As nothing would occur till the evening, , he asked my advice whether the alarm should be rung at once or in the afternoon. We determined to wait till 3 o’clock, and I returned to the chancel. As Minnigerode entered he found the congregation streaming out of the church, and he sprang forward and called out, “Stop! stop! there is no necessity for your leaving the church”; and most of them (i.e., all who had not left before he got back) returned. Then he recalled his appointment for service that night, told the people that we had met with disaster before Petersburg, and a meeting of the citizens would be called by the alarm-bell at 3 o’clock in the Capitol square; that there was no occasion to leave at once, and he requested the communicants to stay to the celebration. About 250 to 300 remained, and some felt as if they were kneeling there with the halter around their necks. The panic was so great.
Connie Cary had Dr. Minnigerode’s account in front of her as she wrote her own Recollections Grave and Gay (1911): ..a number of other people rising in their seats and hastening after him [i.e., President Davis], those who were left swept by a universal tremor of alarm. The rector, accustomed as he was to these frequent scenes in church, came down to the altar rail and tenderly begged his people to remain and finish the service, which was done. Before dismissing his congregation, the rector announced to them that General Ewell had summoned the local forces to meet for defence of the city at three in the afternoon.
William C. Davis also relies on Dr. Minniegerode’s account for his own book, The Man and His Hour (1991): In the next half hour, the sexton returned again and again, calling other members of the government and military from their pews. Before long, the congregation, who had witnessed all this, began spontaneously rising and leaving the church in groups. Even when Minnigerode appealed to them to come back, they continued to wander out to learn what had happened, though most surely suspected well enough. Richmond must be abandoned.
None of these accounts is very specific as to, say, who was the next to be called out by the sexton. Nor are the following, all copying from one source or another: Emory Thomas, in Confederate State of Richmond: Soon, however, the sexton was calling away everyone connected with the government or military. And Shelby Foote in The Civil War (1974): Some few rose to follow, knowing the summons must be urgent for him to leave before taking Communion this first-Sunday. And Ernest B. Furgurson, in Ashes of Glory (1996): …soon the sexton returned to summon another high official, then another and another. Minnigerode urged his audience to stay and be calm. And Jay Winik, in April 1865 (2001): A few staff members and couriers soon followed the President, but the bulk of the congregation remained in their seats, For these, the well-bred and well-to-do, manners forbade them from making an overt show of concern. So, too, with Minnigerode.
However, Mary Johnston supplies the answer in her book, Cease Firing (1912): For all it was so hushed in Saint Paul’s there came a feeling as of swinging bells…. The sexton, who had gone out before Mr. David, returned. He whispered to General Anderson. The latter rose and went out. She goes on: Suddenly the sexton was back, summoning this one and that one and the other. “Sit still, my people, sit still, my people”—but the bells were ringing too loudly and the hearts were beating too hard. Men and women rose, hung panting a moment, then, swift or slow, they left Saint Paul’s. Going, they heard that the lines at Petersburg had been broken and that General Lee said the Government must leave Richmond—leave at once.
Morris Schaff agrees with Mary Johnston. In his own book, Sunset of the Confederacy (1912), he says that hardly had Davis left the door before the sexton again marched up the aisle, spoke to General Joseph Anderson, who at once took his leave. Then followed two more grand entries. He continues: “At this fourth presageful march up the aisle, again with a message to a prominent official, anxiety seized the congregation, and like alarmed birds they rose at once and left the church.
One of the sexton’s grand entries referred to by Schaff must have been the one for the benefit of General Gorgas, chief of the Ordnance Department—that is, if we believe William L. Broun as quoted in the 1912 book by his son: “In a moment, the sexton came back and called out General Gorgas. I confess I was made extremely uneasy, and was reflecting on the probably cause when, being touched on the shoulder and looking around, the sexton whispered to me that a messenger from the war department awaited me at the door. I instantly felt that the end had come.”
Burke Davis certainly went along with Broun. In To Appomattox (1959), he writes: “An officer of the Ordnance Department, Lieutenant Colonel William L. Broun, was in a pew some distance behind the President’s; while Broun wondered about the departure of Davis, he saw Irving return and tap General Gorgas on the shoulder; Gorgas also left the church. A moment later the sexton called Broun, and went to the far side of the church and asked General Joseph Anderson, the head of the Tredegar Iron Works, to follow him. Minnigerode saw Davis leave, followed by others, and when the prayer was ended, the minister went into the chancel to deliver his usual brief Communion Service talk. Irving called out half-a-dozen other men while he spoke. The congregation, he saw, was restless, and Minnigerode hurried to the end as quickly as he could without giving signs of alarm. At last, when the sexton came into the front of the church, and called Minnigerode’s assistant, the Rev. Mr. Kepler, people began leaving the pews. Minnigerode ceased speaking. The rector found the city’s Provost Marshal, Major Isaac Carrington, in the vestry room, and was told that Lee’s lines were broken, and that Richmond was lost.
Clint Johnson sums up the event in his 2008 book, Pursuit: The congregation turned and watched unknowing of what the note said and unsure as to how they should react to their president rudely walking out of a church service, they exchanged worried glances and whispers. What could be so important that the president of the nation could not wait an hour before disrupting church? Opinions differed among the congregation as to how Davis reacted when he read the telegram.
There is more from Clint Johnson: But another watched Davis rise from his seat and “walk softly down the aisle, erect and quiet.” This is almost, but not quite, an exact quote from Ballard, who actually quotes Mary Johnston’s 1912 book Cease Firing. And from Clint Johnson: When Davis walked out of the church clutching the telegram in his hand, he glanced toward his right toward the Virginia State Capitol lawn. What he saw would have troubled the president of any other nation: clerks building bonfires of paper money and bonds. Much of the remaining wealth of the Confederacy was either burning to ashes or blowing down the street, but no one bothered to rescue any of the $50 bills that featured Davis’s idealized portrait showing an unlined, youthful, pleasant, clean-shaven face. This passage is sheer invention.
The final word from Jefferson Davis’s 1881 book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: The occurrence probably attracted attention, but the people of Richmond had been too long beleaguered, had known me too often to receive notice of threatened attacks, and the congregation at St. Paul’s was too refined to make a scene at anticipated danger. For all these reasons, the reader will be prepared for the announcement that the sensational stories which have been published about the agitation caused by my leaving the church during service were the creations of fertile imaginations. I went to my office and assembled the heads of departments and bureaus, as far as they could be found on a day when all the offices were closed, and gave the needful instructions for our removal that night.”
Note:
4/2/63 is the Richmond bread riot: over 1,000 rioted. President Davis shows up, after which the city drops prices in half. Very effective the women marching into stores with revolvers up their sleeves & skirts. In over a dozen cities in the spring of 1863, women did this & then got bread. Below, an interview Trowbridge has with a Mr. H. who talks of the riots. Mr. H. was one of just 21 Union men in Richmond, & one of two men total who voted against Secession: The South: A Tour of its Battlefields and Ruined Cities, A Journey Through the Desolated States, and Talks with the People, 1867 J.T. Trowbridge, J.H. Segards, Editor P. 167
“He corroborated the worst accounts I had heard concerning the state of society in Richmond during the war.
“It seemed as though there was nothing but thieving and robbery going on. The worst robbers were Hood’s men, set to guard the city. They’d halt a man, and shoot him right down if he wouldn’t stop. They’d ask a man the time, and snatch his watch. They went to steal some chickens of a man I knew, and as he tried to prevent them, they killed him. At last the women got to stealing. We had an insurrection of women here, you know. I never saw such a sight. They looked like flocks of old buzzards, picked geese, and cranes; dressed in all sorts of odd rigs; armed with hatchets, knives, axes,— anything they could lay their hands on. They collected together on the Square, and Governor Letcher made ’em a speech from the Monument. They hooted at him. Then Jeff Davis made a speech; they hooted at him too; they didn’t want speeches, they said; they wanted bread. Then they begun to plunder the stores. They’d just go in and carry off what they pleased. I saw three women put a bag of potatoes, and a barrel of flour, and a firkin of butter in a dray; then they ordered the darkey to drive off, with two women for a guard.’”
Note: William Blake, from “Augeries of Innocence”: A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate/Predicts the ruin of the State.
Note: As Sam Houston reportedly said, “I know Jeff Davis well. He is as ambitious as Lucifer and as cold as a lizard. What he touches will not prosper.” Life of General Houston, 1793-1863, Henry Bruce, P. 215
Note: By 1865: exactly 4 years to the day the first shots were fired at Sumter, Lee’s supply lines are cut off, leaving Richmond unprotected. Here at last really came the Yankees, because the Confederacy went South last night & abandoned Richmond. Just after midnight, April 2nd, the Union attacks, telling everyone to leave the city before 18 hours of continuous fighting commences.
.
our land red out of these fire eaters….
All this is soon to be at an end.
But it’s really not.
People often describe seeing a shadow when they find a body. No one else in the house, but when you first come across the body, a shadow seems to hover a moment, a shadow of what would be a real live human.
A wraith.
Then it winks out.
Sheriffs talk of it, strangers see it, family swears by it, & people who know nothing of the sort exists, an encounter they’d never think to dream up, encounter it.
Right now, Neo-Confederates have Generals’ pinups tacked up & a hangman’s knot awaiting anyone who passes through. Davis & Lee photographs decorated with Confederate crosses like survival seeds for long-term storage. Are right now in people’s parlors, over fireplaces. Pictures of Lincoln with a Black man hanging from each of his heels. Right now.
Hanging.