This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[550]
the honor of first entering the late Confederate capital,1 when Lieutenant De Peyster, ascended to the roof of the Virginia State-House, in which the Confederate. Congress had so lately held its sessions, and, assisted by Captain Langdon, Weitzel's chief of artillery, hoisted over it the grand old flag of the Republic.2 In the senate chamber of that building, the office of Headquarters was established; and General Weitzel made the late and sumptuously-furnished residence of Jefferson Davis3 his own dwelling-place, during his stay in Richmond.
The city was placed under military rule.
General Shepley4 was appointed Governor, and Lieutenant-Colonel Manning was made Provost-Marshal.
The troops, meanwhile, had been set at work to extinguish the flames then devouring the city, and by the greatest exertions they succeeded in doing so, but not until nearly one-third of the town was destroyed, and property valued at many million dollars had been annihilated.5
Such was the way in which Richmond, which had been the Headquarters of the Conspirators for nearly four years, was “repossessed” by the Government.
Among the spoils were full five hundred heavy guns, with which the works around Richmond and its vicinity had been armed.
These, with five thousand small-arms, thirty locomotive engines, three hundred cars, and other property, were the spoils found there.
Five thousand sick and wounded men, and one thousand effective ones, were made prisoners of war, and Libby prison was filled with Confederate captives, where lately Union men were languishing.6 Among these was the infamous Turner, the keeper of that jail, whose cruelty to Union prisoners, under the direction of General Winder, was unmerciful, as we shall hereafter observe.
Tidings of the fall of Richmond vent, with lightning-speed, over the land, and produced intense joy among the loyal people.
Before the setting of the sun on that memorable third day of April, public demonstrations of delight and satisfaction were visible everywhere.
In the National Capital,
1 These troops were received with demonstrations of great joy by the negro population.
2 The flag used on that occasion was a storm-flag, which General Shepley had brought from Norfolk. It had formerly belonged to the Twelfth Maine Volunteers, of which he had originally been colonel. It had floated over the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, when General Butler made that house his Headquarters. Shepley had made the remark, one day, in the hearing of young De Peyster, that it would do to float over Richmond, and that he hoped to see it there. His listening aid said: “May I be allowed to raise it for you?” “Yes,” Shepley replied, “if you take it with you, and take care of it, you shall raise it in Richmond.” When the troops were about to move for the city, De Peyster reminded the General of his promise. “Go to my tent,” he said, “and get the flag, and carry it on your saddle; I will send you to raise it, if we get in.” In this way young De Peyster won the distinguished honor of raising the first flag over the ruins of the fallen Confederacy. For this act, and his usual good conduct, the Governor of his native State of New York (Fenton) gave him the commission of lieutenant-colonel, by brevet. He was the son of Major-General J. Watts De Peyster, of Dutchess County, New York. He was only sixteen years of age, when, in 1862, he was active in raising a company for service in the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Regiment New York Volunteers, and at the date of the raising of the flag over the Virginia Capitol, he was between nineteen and twenty years of age.
3 See page 549, volume I.
4 General Weitzel issued an order announcing the occupation of the city by the National troops, and saying to the inhabitants of Richmond, “We come to restore to you the blessings of peace, prosperity and freedom, under the flag of the Union,” and requesting them to “remain for the present quietly within their houses, and to avoid all public assemblages or meetings in the streets.” Kindness and conciliation was freely offered, but it was met, on the part of the disloyal portion of the inhabitants, with foolish sullenness and impotent scorn.
5 There were but two fire-engines in the city fit for use. The conflagration was checked by the soldiers, who pulled down buildings in the pathway of the fire, and so left it nothing to feed upon. “As I stood near the Capitol,” said President Ewell, of William and Mary College, to the writer, “and saw the exertions of those troops, put forth as eagerly in subduing the flames, as if they were trying to save their own property — troops, who, only a few hours before, had a right, by the usages of war, to bombard and destroy the city — the scene impressed me as one of great moral sublimity. But for these efforts all Richmond would doubtless have become a heap of ruins.”
6 The Union prisoners had been removed and exchanged.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.