Richmond burning : the last days of the Confederate capital / Nelson Lankford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lankford, Nelson D.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Richmond (Va.)--History--Siege, 1864-1865.

Richmond (Va.).

Richmond (Va.)--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.

Physical Description:

viii, 312 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Viking, 2002.

Summary:

Through the winter and early spring of 1865, while Union armies ranged at will across the South, Richmond still glittered with the hard defiance of a city long at war. But this last flicker of resolve only made the city's fall all the more devastating. By the morning of April 2, Gen. Robert E. Lee's command had been corroded by desertion, and the forces of his opponent were growing daily. Lee could no longer hold the line of forts and trenches that guarded the Confederate capital. To save his army, he had to retreat. To avoid capture, the government needed to abandon the city that night. Faced with the inevitability of Grant's triumph, Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled, leaving Richmond to its fate -- looting, fire, capture, and the end of hope for a southern nation.

As the last southern soldiers left at dawn on Monday, they fired tobacco warehouses and all the bridges across the river. A rising wind spread embers of destruction over the rooftops. When the Union army marched in, it found the city ablaze. To an eyewitness, the sun shone through the thickening smoke "like a great beacon of woe, or the awful unlashed eye of an avenging Deity." For staunch Confederates, for local Unionists who opposed them, and for the liberated slaves, the city's fall turned the world upside down. In their grief and despair, and their stubborn, sometimes violent resistance to reunification, the vanquished Confederates could not have known that the conquest of Richmond heralded the birth of the modern United States of America.

In this enthralling, meticulously researched book, Nelson Lankford draws upon a treasure trove of diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspaper reports to create a narrative of novelistic immediacy that relives the experiences of the men and women, both black and white, who witnessed these tumultuous events that convulsed their city. Here are unforgettable scenes of Abraham Lincoln's voyage up the James River to the Confederate White House, and of Robert E. Lee's return to Richmond to survey the still-smoldering ruins. Richmond Burning is at once a superb work of history and a stunning piece of dramatic prose.

Contents:

Prologue: April 15, 1865 1

1. Citadel: Winter into Spring, 1865 9

2. Daily Bread: Late March 25

3. Waiting: Late March 35

4. A Day for Fools: Saturday, April 1 49

5. Sabbath Rest: Sunday, April 2, Morning 60

6. A Fugitive Government: Sunday, April 2, Afternoon 70

7. Flitting Shadows: Sunday, April 2, Evening 82

8. Mad Revelry of Confusion: Monday, April 3, Darkness to First Light 96

9. Cruel Cataclysm: Monday, April 3, Morning 113

10. Requiem for Buried Hopes: Monday, April 3, Morning 123

11. Burning: Monday, April 3, Morning to Afternoon 135

12. Let It Burn: Monday, April 3, Afternoon to Evening 146

13. Upon the Wings of Lightning: Tuesday, April 4 156

14. A Week in April: Tuesday, April 4, to Saturday, April 8 168

15. A Whirlwind Sweeping: Tuesday, April 4, to Saturday, April 8 179

16. Prayers for the President: Tuesday, April 4, to Sunday, April 9 192

17. Important Communications: Sunday, April 9, to Friday, April 14 209

18. The Order of the Day: Saturday, April 15, and After 218

19. The Sorry Silence of a Conquered People: April into May 229

Epilogue: Blunt and Withered Laurels 241.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-298) and index.

ISBN:

0670031178

OCLC:

48674587