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| The fall of Richmond: negro refugees with their household goods on the canal When the news reached Richmond, April 2, 1865, that Lee's slender lines had been broken below Petersburg and that the city was forthwith to be abandoned, pandemonium ruled for a brief space of time. All that day by train and wagon, by horse and on foot, the people fled from the city. Early in the evening bands of ruffians appeared, and pillaged and caroused until the arrest of their ringleaders. The magazines were exploded, and Richmond flamed up to the sky, turning the darkness into daylight. There was little sleep that night. Next morning an immense pall seemed to hover over the city that was a capital no more. That day the Union columns of blue marched into Richmond, and the sky was rent with their cheers as they swept into Capitol Square. Forty-eight hours after that memorable still Sunday morning when the news of the break in Lee's lines reached Richmond, the city again lay quiet, her buildings charred, her people sorrow laden. The Sunday following Lee surrendered at Appomattox. The armies in the West shortly yielded. |
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[318]
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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