Richmond, the capital of Virginia, has about one hundred and thirty
thousand population, and occupies a delightful situation. The James
River flows around a grand curve from the northwest to the south, and
pours over falls and rapids, which display many little cascades among
a maze of diminutive islands. There are on the northern bank two or
three large hills and several smaller ones, and Richmond is built upon
these, it is said like Rome upon her seven hills. The State Capitol
and a broad white penitentiary crown two of the highest. The town was
founded at the falls of the James in 1737, and the capital of Virginia
was moved here from Williamsburg in 1779, when there was only a small
population. The place did not have much history, however, until it
became the Capital of the Confederacy, and then the strong efforts
made to capture it and the vigorous defence gave it world-wide fame.
Beginning in 1862 it was made an impregnable fortress, and its fall,
when the Confederate flank was turned in 1865 through the capture of
Petersburg, resulted from General Lee's retreat westward and his final
surrender at Appomattox. When Lee abandoned Petersburg there was a
panic in Richmond, with riot and pillage; the bridges, storehouses and
mills were fired, and nearly one-third of the city burnt. It has
since, however, been rebuilt in better style, and has extensive
manufactures and a profitable trade.
The centre of Richmond is a park of twelve acres, surrounding the
Capitol, a venerable building upon the summit of Shockoe Hill, and the
most conspicuous structure in the city. It was built just after the
American Revolution, the plan having been brought from France by
Thomas Jefferson, and modelled from the ancient Roman temple of the
_Maison Carrée_ at Nismes, the front being a fine Ionic portico. From
the roof, elevated high above every surrounding building, there is an
excellent view, disclosing the grand sweep of the river among the
islands and rapids, going off to the south, where it disappears among
the hills behind Drewry's Bluff, below the town. The square-block plan
with streets crossing at right angles is well displayed, and the
abrupt sides of some of the hills, where they have been cut away,
disclose the high-colored, reddish-yellow soils which have been so
prolific in tobacco culture, and give the scene such brilliant hues,
as well as dye the river a chocolate color in times of freshet. The
city spreads over a wide surface, and has populous suburbs on the
lower lands south of the James. This Capitol was the meeting-place of
the Confederate Congress, and the locality of all the statecraft of
the "Lost Cause." It contains the battle-flags of the Virginia troops
and other relics, and in a gallery built around the rotunda are hung
the portraits of the Virginia Governors and of the three great
military chiefs, Lee, Johnston and Jackson. Upon the floor beneath is
Houdon's famous statue of Washington, made while he was yet alive. In
1785, the talented French sculptor accompanied Franklin to this
country to prepare the model for the statue, which had been ordered by
the Virginia Government. He spent two weeks at Mount Vernon with
Washington, taking casts of his face, head and upper portion of the
body, with minute measurements, and then returned to Paris. The statue
was finished in 1788, and is regarded as the most accurate
reproduction of Washington existing. A statue of Henry Clay and a bust
of Lafayette are also in the rotunda.
[Illustration: _Washington Monument, Richmond, Va._]
On the esplanade north of the Capitol is Crawford's bronze equestrian
statue of Washington upon a massive granite pedestal, one of the most
attractive and elaborate bronzes ever made. The horse is half thrown
upon his haunches, giving the statue exceeding spirit, while upon
smaller pedestals around stand six heroic statues in bronze of
Virginia statesmen of various periods--Patrick Henry, Thomas
Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, George Mason, Andrew Lewis and Chief Justice
John Marshall--the whole adorned with appropriate emblems. This
artistic masterpiece was constructed at a cost of $260,000. In the
centre of the esplanade is Foley's bronze statue of Stonewall Jackson,
sent from London in 1875 by a number of his English admirers as a
gift to the State of Virginia. It is of heroic size, standing upon a
pedestal of Virginia granite, and is a striking reproduction. The
inscription is: "Presented by English gentlemen as a tribute of
admiration for the soldier and patriot, Thomas J. Jackson, and
gratefully accepted by Virginia in the name of the Southern people."
Beneath is inscribed in the granite the remark giving his sobriquet,
which was made at the first battle of Bull Run in 1862, where Jackson
commanded a brigade. At a time when the day was apparently lost, his
troops made so firm a stand that some one, in admiration, called out
the words that became immortal: "Look, there is Jackson standing like
a stone wall!" A short distance from the Capitol is the "Confederate
White House," a square-built dwelling, with a high porch in the rear
and a small portico in front. Here lived Jefferson Davis during his
career as President of the Confederacy; it is now a museum of war
relics. Nearby is St. Paul's Episcopal Church, where Davis was
attending service on the eventful Sunday morning in April, 1865, when
he was brought the fateful telegram from General Lee which said that
Richmond must be immediately evacuated. In the central part of the
residential quarter, on Franklin Street, is the plain brick house
which during the Civil War was the home of General Lee. It is related
that after the Appomattox surrender, when he returned to this
house, the people of Richmond got an idea that he was suffering
privations and his family needed the necessaries of life. His son,
Fitz Hugh Lee, afterwards said that the people then vied with each
other in sending him everything imaginable. So generous were the gifts
that the upper parts of the house were filled with barrels of flour,
meats and many other things, and the supplies became so bountiful that
Lee directed their distribution among the poor. This house is now
occupied by the Virginia Historical Society. A magnificent equestrian
statue of General Lee was erected on Park Avenue in 1890.
Some Richmond memorials, however, antedate the Civil War. Its "first
house"--a low, steep-roofed stone cabin on the Main street, said to
have been there when the town site was first laid out--is an object of
homage. The popular idea is that the Indian King Powhatan originally
lived in this house, but it was probably constructed after his time.
Not far away, upon Richmond or Church Hill, stands St. John's Church
among the old gravestones in a spacious churchyard. It was built in
1740--a little wooden church with a small steeple. Here the first
Virginian Convention was held which paved the way for the Revolution
in 1775, and listened to Patrick Henry's impassioned speech--"Give me
liberty or give me death." The pew in which he stood while speaking is
still preserved. An adjoining eminence is called Libby Hill, where
lived Luther Libby, who owned most of the land thereabout. Under its
shadow was the Libby Prison of the Civil War, since removed to Chicago
for exhibition. It had been a tobacco warehouse, occupied by Libby &
Co., but during the war it held at various times over fifty thousand
Northern prisoners. All the captured soldiers were first taken to
Libby, the commissioned officers remaining there, while the privates
were sent to points in the interior. The most noted event in the
history of this prison was the boring of a tunnel through the eastern
wall, in February, 1864, by which one hundred and nine prisoners, led
by Colonel Streight, managed to escape into an adjoining stable and
storehouse, and though more than half of them were recaptured, the
others got safely out of Richmond and into the Union lines.
The water power of the James River supplies huge flour mills and other
factories, and alongside the stream are the extensive Tredegar Iron
Works at the base of Gamble Hill, one of the largest iron and steel
works in the Southern States. Here were made the Confederate cannon,
shot and shell, and the primitive armor plates for their few warships.
This hill also overlooks the James River and Kanawha Canal, an
interior water way going westward beyond the Alleghenies. In mid-river
above is Belle Isle, a broad, flat island, which during the war was a
place of imprisonment for private soldiers, but upon it is now an iron
mill. Along the lower river are the wharves and shipping, in the
section called Rocketts, and here are also the tobacco storehouses and
factories, the chief Richmond industry, for it is the world's leading
tobacco mart, receiving and distributing most of the product of the
rich soils of Virginia, Kentucky and Carolina. The pungent odor
generally pervades the town, for whichever way the wind may blow it
wafts the perfume of a tobacco or cigarette factory. The Tobacco
Exchange is the business centre, and this industry is of the first
importance. The modern-built City Hall, adjacent to the Capitol Park,
is one of Richmond's finest buildings.
In the western suburbs, upon the river bank, and in a lovely position,
is the famous Hollywood Cemetery, the terraced sides of its ravines
being occupied by mausoleums and graves, while in front the rushing
rapids roar a requiem for the dead. The foliage is luxuriant; and,
while occupying only about eighty acres, it is a most beautiful
burial-place. Here are interred two Virginia Presidents--James Monroe
and John Tyler. An elaborate monument marks the former, and a
magnificent tree is planted at Tyler's grave--his daughter, buried
nearby, having for a monument a tasteful figure of the Virgin. The
Hollywood Cemetery Association is to place a monument on Tyler's
grave. Here are also buried Confederate Generals A. P. Hill, J. E. B.
Stuart, the dashing cavalryman, and George E. Pickett, who led the
desperate Confederate charge of the Virginia Division at Gettysburg.
It also contains the graves of the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke;
Commodore Maury, the navigator; Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia
when the State seceded, and Thomas Ritchie, long editor of the
_Richmond Enquirer_, a most powerful writer and political leader in
the early part of the nineteenth century, who is regarded in Virginia
as the "Father of the Democratic Party." There are crowded into this
cemetery in one place twelve thousand graves of Confederate soldiers,
and in the centre of the ghastly plot there rises a huge stone
pyramid, ninety feet high, erected as a memorial by the Southern
women. Vines overrunning it almost conceal the rough joints of the
stones. No name is upon it, for it was built as a monument for the
unnamed dead. On three sides are inscriptions; on one "To the
Confederate Dead;" on another "Memoria in Æterna," and on a third
"Numini et Patriæ Asto." As they fell on the adjacent battlefields or
died in the hospitals, unclaimed, they were brought here and buried in
rows. In one urgent, terrible season, time not being given to prepare
separate graves, the bodies were interred on the hillside in long
trenches. This sombre pyramid and its immediate surroundings are
impressive memorials of the great war. From any of the Richmond hills
can be seen other grim mementos. Almost all the present city parks
were then army hospitals or cemeteries; all the chief highways lead
out to battlefields, and most of them in the suburbs are bordered with
the graves of the dead of both armies. All around the compass the
outlook is upon battlefields, and on all sides but the north upon
cemeteries.
McCLELLAN'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND.
The great memory of Richmond for all time will be of the Civil War,
when for three years battles raged around it. The first movement
against the city was McClellan's siege in 1862, and the environs show
abundant remains of the forts, redoubts and long lines of earthworks
by which the Confederate Capital was so gallantly defended. The
earliest attack was by Union gunboats in May, 1862, against the
batteries defending Drewry's Bluff on James River, seven miles below
the town, the defensive works being so strong that little impression
was made, but enough was learned to prevent any subsequent naval
attack there. McClellan came up the Peninsula between James and York
Rivers, approached Richmond from the east, and extended his army
around to the north, enveloping it upon a line which was the arc of a
circle, from seven miles east to five miles north of the city. The
Chickahominy flows through a broad and swampy depression in the
table-land north and east of Richmond, bordered by meadows, fens and
thickets of underbrush. It thus divided McClellan's investing army,
and the first great battle near Richmond was begun by the
Confederates, who took advantage of a heavy rain late in May which had
swollen the river and swamps. They fell upon the Union left wing on
May 31st, and the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks, in which the losses
were ten thousand men, was fought southwest of the Chickahominy.
General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate Commander, was badly
wounded, and General Lee succeeded him, continuing in command until
the war closed. Extensive cemeteries now mark this battlefield among
the swamps. During June the heat and malaria filled McClellan's
hospitals with fever cases, and he had to move the greater portion of
his army to higher ground north of the Chickahominy, where he erected
protective earthworks. These still exist, with the formidable ranges
of opposing Confederate works on the south side of the river.
One of the most brilliant Confederate movements of the war followed.
McClellan's right wing stretched around to the village of
Mechanicsville, five miles north of Richmond, and Lee determined to
overwhelm this wing. Stonewall Jackson had been driving the Union
troops out of the Shenandoah Valley northwest of Richmond, and late in
June began a combined movement with Lee's army at Richmond. Longstreet
and Hill crossed the Chickahominy above Mechanicsville and attacked
the Union right, beginning the "Seven Days' Battles," lasting from
June 25 to July 1, 1862. Jackson was to have got down the same day
from the Shenandoah Valley, but his march was delayed, and this gave
time for McClellan to withdraw his wing and extensive baggage trains
across the swamps below, the stubborn defense by his rear guards
making the fierce conflict of Gaines' Mill, on the second day, during
which Jackson, coming from the northward and joining the others,
compelled the Union lines to change front, the contest thus turning
into the first battle of Cold Harbor, in which the rear held their
ground until the retreat was completed across the Chickahominy, and
withdrew, destroying roads and bridges behind them. McClellan then
made a further retreat, for which these obstructive tactics gave time,
across the White Oak Swamp down the river, moving on a single road,
leading to higher ground, which was held by hasty defenses. The
Confederate attacks upon this new line made the battles of Savage
Station, Charles City Cross Roads, and Frazier's Farm, the pursuit
being checked long enough to permit another retreat and the formation
of lines of defense on Malvern Hill, fifteen miles southeast of
Richmond, adjoining James River. The Confederates again attacked, but
met a disastrous check; and, wearied by a week of battles and marches,
they then desisted, closing the seven days' fighting, in which both
sides were worn out, and the losses were forty thousand men.
McClellan's army, having retreated from around Richmond, afterwards
withdrew farther down James River to Harrison's Landing, and here they
rested. Subsequently they were removed by vessels to Washington for
the later campaign which resulted in the second battle of Bull Run,
McClellan being superseded for a brief period by Pope. This brilliant
Confederate movement against McClellan raised the siege and relieved
Richmond, emboldening them to make their subsequent aggressive
campaigns across the Potomac, which were checked at Antietam and at
Gettysburg.