"My line is broken in three places, and Richmond must be evacuated," was
Lee's despatch to Davis, received by the arch-traitor at eleven and a
half o'clock in St. Paul's Church. He read it with blanched cheeks, and
left the church in haste.
Davis had robbed the banks of Virginia a few days before, seizing the
bullion in the name of the Confederacy; and his first thought was how to
secure the treasure.
He hurried to the executive mansion, passed up the winding stairway to
his business apartment, seated himself at a small table, wrote an order
for the removal of the coin to Danville, and for the evacuation of the
city.
There was no evening service in the churches on that Sunday. Ministers
and congregations were otherwise employed. The Reverend Mr. Hoge, ablest
of the Presbyterian pastors, fiercest advocate of them all for Slavery
as a divine missionary institution, bitterest hater of the North, packed
his carpet-bag and took a long Sabbath-day's journey towards the South.
The Reverend Mr. Duncan, of the Methodist Church, did the same work of
necessity. Lumpkin, who for many years has kept a slave-trader's jail,
also had a work of necessity on hand,--fifty men, women, and children,
who must be saved to the missionary institution for the future
enlightenment of Africa. Although it was the Lord's day, (perhaps he was
comforted by the thought, that, the better the day, the better the
deed,) the coffle-gang was made up in the jail-yard, within pistol-shot
of Davis's parlor-window, within a stone's throw of the Monumental
Church, and a sad and weeping throng, chained two and two, the last
slave-coffle that shall ever tread the streets of Richmond, were hurried
to the Danville Depot. Slavery being the corner-stone of the
Confederacy, it was fitting that this gang, keeping step to the music of
their clanking chains, should accompany Jeff Davis's secretaries,
Benjamin and Trenholm, and the Reverend Messrs. Hoge and Duncan, in
their flight. The whole Rebel Government was on the move, and all
Richmond desired to be. No thoughts of taking Washington now, or of the
flag of the Confederacy flaunting in the breeze over the old Capitol!
Hundreds of officials were at the depot, to get away from the doomed
city. Public documents, the archives of the Confederacy, were hastily
gathered up, tumbled into boxes and barrels, and taken to the trains, or
carried into the streets and set on fire. Coaches, carriages, wagons,
carts, wheelbarrows, everything in the shape of a vehicle was brought
into use. There was a jumble of boxes, chests, trunks, valises,
carpet-bags,--a crowd of excited men sweating as they never sweat
before,--women with dishevelled hair, unmindful of their wardrobes,
wringing their hands,--children crying in the crowd,--sentinels guarding
each entrance to the train, pushing back at the point of the bayonet the
panic-stricken multitude, giving precedence to Davis and the high
officials, and informing Mr. Lumpkin that his niggers could not be
taken. Oh, what a loss was there! It would have been fifty thousand
dollars out of somebody's pocket in 1861, but millions now of
Confederate promises to pay, which the hurrying multitude and that
coffled gang were treading under foot,--literally trampling the bonds of
the Confederate States of America in the mire, as they marched to the
station; for the streets were as thickly strown with four per cents, six
per cents, eight per cents as the forest with last year's leaves.
"The faith of the Confederate States is pledged to provide and establish
sufficient revenues for the regular payment of the interest, and for the
redemption of the principal," read the bonds; but there was a sudden
eclipse of faith, and not merely an eclipse, but a collapse, a
shrivelling up, like a parched scroll, of the entire Confederacy, which,
like its bonds, notes, and certificates of indebtedness, was old rags!
In the Sabbath evening twilight, the trains, with the fugitive
Government, its stolen bullion, and its Doctors of Divinity on board,
moved out from the city.
At the same hour, the Governor of Virginia, William Smith, and the
Assembly, were embarked in a canal-boat, on the James River and Kanawha
Canal, moving for Lynchburg. On all the roads were men, women, and
children, in carriages of every description, with multitudes on
horseback and on foot, fleeing from the Rebel capital. Men who could not
get away were secretly at work, during those night-hours, burying plate
and money in gardens; ladies secreted their jewels, barred and bolted
their doors, and passed a sleepless night, fearful of the morrow, which
would bring the hated, despised, Vandal horde of Yankee ruffians: for
such were the epithets which they had persistently applied to the
soldiers of the Union throughout the war.
But before the entrance of the Union army they had an experience from
their friends. Following the example of the Government, which had robbed
the banks, the soldiers pillaged the city, breaking open stores, and
helping themselves to whatever suited their convenience and taste, of
clothing, fancy goods, eatables, and drinkables.
But the Government itself was not quite through with its operations in
Richmond. The Secretary of War, John C. Breckinridge, with General
Ewell, remained till daylight on Monday morning to clear up things,--not
to burn public archives in order to destroy evidence of Confederate
villany, but to commit more crime, so deep, damning, that the stanchest
friends of the Confederacy recoil with horror from the act.
To prevent the United States from obtaining possession of a few thousand
hogsheads of tobacco, a thousand houses were destroyed by fire, the
heart of the city was eaten out,--all of the business portions, all the
banks and insurance-offices, half of the newspapers, mills, depots,
bridges, foundries, workshops, dwellings, churches, thirty squares in
all, swept clean by the devouring flames. It was the work of the
Confederate Government. And not only this, but human life was
remorselessly sacrificed.
In the outskirts of the city, on the Mechanicsville road, was the
almshouse, filled with the lame, the blind, the halt, the bedridden, the
sick, and the poor. Ten rods distant was a magazine containing fifteen
or twenty kegs of powder, of little value to a victorious army with full
supplies of ammunition. They could have been rolled into the creek near
at hand; but the order of Jeff Davis was to blow up the magazines, and
the order must be executed.
"We give you fifteen minutes to get out of the way," was the sole notice
to that crowd of helpless creatures lying in their cots, at three
o'clock in the morning. Men and women begged for mercy. In vain their
cries. The officer in charge of the matter was inexorable. Clotheless
and shoeless, the inmates of the almshouse ran in terror from the spot
to seek shelter in the ravines. But there were those who could not run,
who, while the train was laying, rent the air with shrieks of terror.
The train was fired at the expiration of the allotted time. The whole
side of the house went in with a crash, as if it were no more than
pasteboard. Windows flew into minutest particles. Bricks, stones,
timbers, beams, and boards went whirling through the air. Trees were
wrenched off as though a giant had twisted them into withes. The city
rocked as if upheaved by an earthquake. The dozen poor wretches
remaining in the almshouse were torn to pieces. Their bodies were but
blackened masses of flesh, when the fugitives who had sought shelter in
the fields returned to the shattered ruins.
How stirring the events of that morning! Lee retreating, Grant pursuing;
Davis a fugitive; the Governor and Legislature of Virginia seeking
safety in a canal-boat; Doctors of Divinity fleeing from the wrath to
come; the troops of the Union marching up the streets; the old flag
waving over the Capitol; Rebel iron-clads blowing up; Richmond in
flames; the fiery billows rolling on from house to house, from block to
block, from square to square, unopposed in their progress by the
panic-stricken, stupefied, bewildered crowd; and the Northern Vandals
laying aside their arms, manning the engines, putting out the fire, and
saving the city from total destruction! Through the terrible day, all
through the succeeding night, the smoke of its torment went up to
heaven. Strange, weird, the scenes of that Monday night,--the glimmering
flames, the clouds of smoke hanging like a funeral pall above the ruins,
the crowd of woe-begone, houseless, homeless creatures wandering through
the streets:--
"Such resting found the soles of unblest feet!"