throughout richmond, virginia, at the end of the civil war was intentionally set before the union soldiers arrived and that it was allowed to burn freely. this half hour talk was given at the fountain book store in richmond, virginia. thank you very much, kelly,n and indeed it's a pleasure to be here in this book store, which is in the middle of the burn t district for blocks around this was nothing but smokes ashes th first week of april, 1865."no and a television interview a vi couple days ago about the book. the interviewer said now, i know that you interviewed some i eyewitnesss to the fire, and i want to you tell me about those eyewitnesss. and i bit my tongue, resisted rc the urge to say, oh, yes, i talked to some 150-year-old people. but i did have a rich, wide range of sources to draw upon.

newspaper, diaries and letters of ordinary people as well as the highly placed.f the fire -- the fall of richmont in april 1865 and the fire that came to symbolize itt s overshadowed everything that hae occurred in the history of the city after that time.mon and it's influenced everything that's happened since.d the book is more than just d richmond, just civil war. it's about the creation of the c modern united states of america, and why do i say that? because the confederatest to create a separate nation had to fail. richmond had to fall for there i to be the modern united states of america that we know today. you can't make up a more ned i dramatic sequence that occurred, the government trying to create

a separate southern republic, abandon its capital on april 2,a 1865. the southern army evacuated thea city, fire burned the business e district. the union army marched in.e slavery ended and abraham lincoln himself walked through s the burn, smoldering ashes of the city and sat in jefferson f davis' chair and all that happened within 48 hours.th you just can be imagine and make up a more dramatic sequence of events.w now, to set the stage by 1865, the spring, the civil war was coming to a close, even strongest confederates goon seed their cause, the military situation was indeed dire and richmond was surrounded by of ulysses grant's army and in theo spring of 1865, general lee could not hold out against thate army, and he saw that his only chance was to retreat to the re, west. he retreated and grant followed.

so the military action as it i were is offstage in my book. off to the southwest, and then l smaller union army marches in a and occupies richmond as it falls. night of april 2nd and 3rd, 1865 was a night of chaos a asn jefferson davis' government leaves on the last trains from , the danville depot, on the last rail line to the southwest. the only rail line to confederate territory. even before the confederate arml fled the city by dawn, the city fell into chaos. civil order fell apart.ao the city fathers tried to, to reduce the chaos by destroying the liquor supply, because theyr knew that when people got theirw hands on liquor that would make the looting and rioting even ke worse, but they failed, because

they rolled the cask of whiskey, into the street and knocked the barrels in with the head of an o ax and the liquid flowed out a into the streets but men, women and even children got down on their hands and knees to lap up the alcohol and, of course, this just made the situation worse. one of -- there was a british correspondent who was in pp richmond at the time to observem all of this, and his last column to appear from richmond in the r "times of london" quoted shakespeare. he said, hell is empty and all the devils are here. it was a wild night. by morning, by dawn of monday april 3, 1865, the last of the confederate defenders were dg fleeing across mayo's bridge l and, of course, the two railroad bridges, when they -- the last units left, they set the bridged on fire and they burned several tobacco warehouses that

contained confederate government tobacco. they had their orders to destroh anything of value. when they set the fires, there was no wind. so they had a chance to just destroy that, those goods of military value, but as soon as they set the fire, a brisk wind came up from the south and swept the flames flew the business district, and destroyed much of richmond, much of the business district.l now, if you look at a map, only about 10% of the total area of the city burned. most private housing survived, but the fire consumed 90% of the business district and with it ie wiped out the jobs and most of the people in the cityt. one of the great refuges was the green space on capital square aa civilians fled there to escape the flames. the union general in charge of a the army that marched in, a man

named godfrey whitesell, he andn his staff took up position on e the capital and looked down on o crater of firekind of a people pointient moment because his don wife died of burns ju s just mo before and wonder fundament eera were being burned down below as he looked at the fires. weren't of the confederate women who observed the fire said that the sunou, which was well up ine the sky now, a couple hours after dawn as the fire really intensified, she said the sun shown through smoke like a great beacon of woe, or the awful unlashed eye of an avengen deity.y.she the confederate arsenal began ti burn, ghtoo.a artillery shells began to explode making it difficult for people to fight thei fire. one confederate direst observedc noted, that, interesting, all

the banks burned and all moneychang moneychangers. actual think was, began from the highest levels of the confederate high command, because they had their orders wh not to leave anything of f military value, and the order came down the chain of command to the men who lit the fires ont the bridges and the tobacco warehouses. now, the reaction of pro confederate civilians in richmond shows you how people gr can holdat contradictory opinioa at the same time, because these people thanked and were grateful, thanked the yankees and were grateful to them for fighting the fire. that's what happened.erson the union army came in and ee fought the fire. they were thankful for that. they blamed jefferson davis, li even though it was lee's men wht set the fire, and they still m wished and believed and hoped ll that lee would return with a flaming sword and deliver them h from their occupation. so they had all of these f contradictory feelings. nowi, the book goes a couple c

weeks after the fire, because ta the week after, i call it the twilight week, because the e armies are offstage and nobody knows what the outcome is.ce not even the union occupiers. so the civilians solemnly accept occupation but still hope that maybe the results will come outs favorable to their cause and thr union occupiers aren't sure what the outcome will be either.ch anr interesting twilight periodh for a week. that's the outline chronology oa what the book cover, but t history, i ethink, good historyt is storytelling. that means telling anecdotes ll about people. so i like to just mention a few of the people that you'll find r in the book. one of them was a woman named fannie taylor dickinson. bn her diary just came to the virginia historical society just a couple of years ago and i ife don't believe it's been used inw any books like mine yet. she was the wife of a baptist

minister and was one of the people who, one of the many people who had no idea that the end for their cause was coming.e so it struck her like a thunder cloud. and she began to keep a diary the day after the fire, and you really get the sense of immediacy when she writes, for example, at the very beginning e she says something like, i can't believe it was only yesterday that the yankees arrived. it seemed like forever, and youo get this immediate feeling for life under occupation, and i trr to include a lot of comments ry from just ordinary folks like her. a couple days later she said, i she wrote in her diary, last ne night i ringed the bell for ic milly. she was nowhere to be found. t in this one understated sentence, fannie dickinson captured the upheaval that the fall of richmond met, because g milly was gone, slavery was gone and things would nerve are be

the same. everyone had, black and white, n had to begin working out differento relations.r another amazing person, an african-american journalist, thm only black journalist to be wits the northern armies coming intor the city. income, there were a number of journalists four major papers in the north who came into the city the day of the fire, the next ad couple days afterwards and sent wonderful cables back to -- wonderful in the sense of detailed dispatches back to their papers, and because of the telegraph, the day -- one and a maybe at the most two days latec people in the north read these m very detailed accounts of what was happening in richmond. it was great information for me as writer, but because during this twilight week you would have these reports that had a byline and a dateline even to hi the hour.oing you knew what they knew at thata particular day and what they didn't know what was going on t with the military situation. so it's great information.

thomas chester wrote his first f paper, "the philadelphia press," seated in the chair of the n speaker of the house of delegates in the capitol. this was -- this was an event oi great symbolism and he knew it. he was a black man sitting in that chair writing his first al dispatch. a great, dramatic stuff. another person who was appealing character was a young confederate artillery general.y one of the, one of the last units who evacuated across the bridge and saw it burn, and he wrote sometime later, a quote e from his memoir.sional the whole riverfront seemed to be in flames amid which occasional heavy explosions were hurt and the black smoke spreading and hanging over the city. i rode on a heavy heart and peculiar feeling of orphanage. then a captain, linus sherman.

one of the things i found, we interesting letters written by union soldiers who came in. they knew they were observing a history in the making so they h wrote letters and sent them home. the army upmail, the northern an mails were fum of these letters from the first few days of ew en occupation. linus sherman was a very a perspective nuew englander who e glad ople generally ar to see us. a not i suppose from much of a e union sentiment, but because bet they suffered so much. hu probably a fair characterization. even those whot supported the ya southern cause were beaten downh warn out and hungry, and they were happy to see the yankees cp come in and help fight the fireg they weren't happy with the result, but sherman was perceptive in defining their e sentiments. i guess onend of the most poignu scenes comes with a man named garland white. he was a chaplain with the 28th usct.fight usct stands for united states ra

colored troop, african-american men recruited to fight with the union army. garland white's retch money was one of the first to come into the city and they marched through the city, marched the lt western edge of town.on they were followed by a large te crowd of freed people and they went to a military camp on the d western edge of town, stacked their arms and the officers asked garland white to get up and make a few comments to heg people about theot meaning of freedom. he was a preacher. so he was a gifted speaker. he got up and began to talk.ho just imagine, this was the day e of freedom for the people he was talking to.uldn even though he was a gifted o exhorter, he choked up. said a few words about freedom s and couldn't finish, because heo had been born into slavery.to in richmond. and as a boy had been sold south to georgia and escaped to the north, became a preacher and inm a sense had come home with his y regimen. he was choked up.

while composing himself a coupli of his comrades brought an old lady up to him who wanted to moh quizer him.in he tried to answer her questions. after she was satisfied she said, garland, this is your mother who has been looking forr you for all of these year. you can't get more poignant than that. one of the great scenes of the war, of the evacuation of the fire was mayo's bridge, as it le was burning, and as the last confederate united nations wecon fed rconfederate unions. i if any crossed after we did they need have no fear of the other world because they surely were firefroof. even though, i think, some of in these stories i think are quite dramatic, the winner for the t most dramatic has to be se lincoln's run, because just thel

think of this. just think about what would happen to the secret service if they let the president do this today?ew lincoln was at grant's headquarters, general grant's te headquarters at city point, nown hopewell, virginia, there to nd observe the siege and he just happened to be there when the campaign opened and lee retreated and grant followed. when lincoln heard of the fall m he said i want to see richmond. so the admiral in charge of thei gun but on the james ordered the flow tillty to go up the day after the occupation. they had clearly confederate mines. swept the river for mines and got some of them, but didn't get all of them. a bit tense going upriver, and w one by one ships had engine trouble, or ran into obstructions. then when they -- they fell behind one by one and lincoln te

moved to progressively smaller ships. then to the confederate barrierh across the river. lincoln insisted on continuing. he ended up, got into an d op admiral's barge, just a hat glorified open rowboat pulled bi 12 horsemen. you can imagine what the s officers of his security detail were thinking as they stood on t the deck of the bigger ship, their guards. watching the president disappean upstream towards richmond, whict was known to be in union hands but they didn't know it was d under fully -- under military control. so when he got to richmond at the docks, he was met instantly recognized by people there. i mean, he was wearing a long, dark coat and a tall stove pipe hat. everybody, even in the south, al knew abraham lincoln from drawings in newspapers, and as he walked from the docks up to h

the white house con fed racy, davis' house, where he knew thew union military seth up it headquarters he was followed by a crowd mainly of freed people. there were some white people, but mainly african-americans who cheered him, because he more than anyone represented freedom that they came.he now, i think what i would hope u that readerst will take away fre the book is something i don't talk about explicitly but i hope that the book sets the stage for this, and that is that for a long time after the civil war, a bitterness and recrimination and hatred had been engendered during the war persisted from generations. we take the sectional unity of america much too much for granted today.kg thank god for it, but it took a long time in coming.t it took generations, and if you read the book and see that the

sentiments, read the sentiments of the people in richmond at te what had happened, you can get a feel for that bitterness and how it persisted for many years. and i -- that's kind of -- that's a series note but an ist important point to understand about american history.ld w because it really wasn't until historians said until maybe the world war ii era, before the as south was integrated economically into the nation's economy, and as far as sentimen goes, even beyond that, there l was a sense of division. but i think i will leave with a comment by one of my favorite characters in the book. a fire-breathing confederate newspaper editor named edward om pollard. he was -- he was a really diehard confederate. it's kind of hard from reading his columns, hard to know whom he hated more, lincoln or jefferson davis.i but pollard in writing about -- he stayed around.pat he witnessed the occupation, and

he stayed for a few days, but h wouldn't stop his secessionist i opinions so the union army threw him out of the city, but he sou observed firsthand the fire, thl fall of the city and he said, all hopes of a southern confederacy consumed like a scroll in the fire. thank you very much. >> be happy to take questions. yes, sir? >> -- i'm a high school history teacher and raced most of my life, when i get to the civil i war, the kids come to me and i h know they get it from their pec, parents, starting to say, from g historical perspective what the world is about, why the south i secede and so on. a historical perspective without taking sides i immediately get what i like to call that ut

confederate revisionist not perspective on history. that's not what it was about. it was about heritage. not about hate. just like, oh, god. i can't -- how have you dealt with that in the past in your t writings? what reactions in your book with those types of confederate st revisionist historians, which it's an absurd viewpoint, i is think. >> well, the book just came out last week, so -- it does not have a history of dealing with critics. right, right.ew, but i would say in my, of yo courseu -- there's always hope for good reviews, and, but if th you publish a book you put it out for people to is a loot or shoot at. a that's the nature of publicizing. i only hope what andrew bears tb once wrote one of the shortest book reviews on record who said the covers of this book are too far apart. so i pray that that is not the t

fate of richmond burning. but to get back to your question, in the book, and i think in a way of approaching history you have to deal with -t with the evidence at the time, and not, and try to -- you try to not deal with what happened afterwards in the business of heritage. that that's kind of a present day you know, disagreement, but if you go back to the time and read what the people there say, the war was about -- well, it was about slavery.ise it was about sectional rights. henryse wise was the virginia o governor who became a very strong cessationist and was gs. ready, before the war, ready to fight for southern rights and southern slavery and a combination of things, you can't separate the two. people in the south wanted to r defend their way of life that included the institution of

slavery. it's true that a lot of ordinara people that fought for confederacy were doing it now because they had these theoretical ideas about slavery. about defending their community. so it's a very -- it's itical complicated but -- i hope you can avoid some of these or political things, if you focus on what people at the time wered saying. don't take my word for it, or the word of other historians, don't even take the word of w confederate or union 86 participants after the war.the go back and look at what they were saying in 1860 and '61 about what the disagreement werd about that led americans to thin start to kill americans. civil war is a bad thing. h i mean, we had a civil war during the revolution. really have to be, you know -- p it's a serious decision to make to divide your community. and that's what happened. the civil war is a great failure of american politics, and on the other hand, that's the down side

and result was in some ways ther redemption. and we have the modern country that we now have. the long-winded reaction to your comment. yes? >> looking forward to getting the book and see how you deal with the -- the big challenge of the union occupying forces trying to establishes what woul pass for orderly activity in richmond. in did they get any help from the richmond sheriff during that?ma just strictly had to do it undes martial lawe operation?ome >> they hadn't declared martial law.they the probe boast set up.he they did get from the local supl authorities. one of the things they had to s do, helpt feed people, because the food supply was -- had beenh constricted before the war, ande

it actually got worse pt. temporarily when the union army came in, because the supplies p were disrupted.fr they got into the business of helping feed civilians. so they did get help from -- pl from pro-confederate civilians i like the ymca, which helped feee people under the confederate e period, then worked with the union army to do the same thingl but there was martial law. they did have guards to, uniformed soldiers, to maintain order. yes, sir? >> the area that was burned, i know a lot of us along the main street, does it extend into the area of the -- [ inaudible ]. ue >> no.ef you look i---the question, how far the fire extended. the fire was one of the great o media events for a couple of weeks.

i mentionedc the telegraph allowed reporters to send rapher hundreds of columns of stories e to northern papers.pi but then you also have photographers coming in a coupl of days later to take pictures r of the fire, and there are c hundreds of pictures of the i devastation. one of the advantage points that the photographers used to t capture the devastation was gamble's hill.i he set up there to view down below. so it didn't get that high. burned right up to the base of capitol square and around the th edge to the west.am. everything in capitol square down to the river. the turning basin in the river was pretty much wiped out. >> yes, ma'am? >> what was going on in the an hospital. >> jim barrasso was the grace w. confederate military hospital e east of town. at one point, the largest military hospital in the world. there was still a number of y

wounded and ill confederate soldiers at that hospital, and when the union army marched in, they took over the facility hei to -- well, they let the ns confederate surgeons stay there to tend their men and they w consolidated them intoa certain divisions of the hospital to free up other wards for wounde union soldiers and so within a couple of days you had both blue and gray in the same hospital. in fact, the only example that i found of -- uniformed officers i of either side formally surrendering during the fall ofy richmond was at the hospital ed when some union officers went to, they were met at the here hospital by the uniformed co confederate army doctorsn to su formally surrender and there's a story that the confederate, one of the confederate surgeons kne one of the union officers from n before the war, which is probably true, but he an orderly

bring out a tray of mint jewel i g juleps. that's a great story.n, but it sounds too good to be true. yes, sir? >> you mentioned n earlier thats think dickinson, the woman's k name. >> yes. >> was kind of surprised when all this happened. >> yes. >> was that a typical reaction or did she have her head in the sand? >> there were a lot of people, including jefferson davis and e even to some extent robert e. lee hoping things would turn out differently. i cite her as an example. s a largeee segment of people dido their heads in the sand and didn't want to see what was o coming and other people talk ana evac ways acuation and feared i. a range of opinion.a the government actually made some effort of evacuation a week or so before the fall of the city but didn't do it with enough energy either to frighten people or to accomplish what they were trying to do, becausey

when the time came they to throi together a couple of trains and they escaped with some of the papers and the cabinet officers, and that was it. yes? >> how would you compare the significance of the fall of esti richmond and the surrender at rd epmatics?er >> question is, how does the fall of richmond and the surrender compare?y the fall are richmond, because of the telegraph lines, the o union army had telegraph lines 3 to washington. so that the city fell the and morning of monday, april the y 3rd, by mid-morning, people kne in washington, and they came oua and cheered and celebrated, ando in new york, thousands of people came out to celebrate, because , they knew the fall of richmond meant the end to the war.re and later, after epmatics, tha occurred six days later, there

were celebrations too, but the t "new york times" said that the fall of richmond made much more of an impact of people in the north and appomatics because that's when they know it was al almost overish and appomatics tr them was almost an afterthought and just by the nature of comig after the big event. it was overshadowed. yes, sir? >> if i could say anything, wasn't there still a -- hin artillery still there at that w point? >> i thinko you're thinking of,r there are some pictures after ld the war of rows and rows of cannons at rocket's landing. they were accumulated, collectel there, by the union army as they were trying to police the area and just gather up all of the l confederate military gear.we and i think that only happened right after, but it's in the week after the fall of the city.