Richmond, Virginia served as the capital of the Confederate States of America for almost the whole of the American Civil War. It was a vital source of weapons and supplies for the war effort, and the terminus of five railroads.

The Union made many attempts to invade Richmond. In the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, General George McClellan moved up the James River, almost to the suburbs of the city, but was beaten back by Robert E. Lee in the Seven Days Battles. In 1864-5, General U.S. Grant laid siege to nearby Petersburg. By April 1865, the Confederate government realized the siege was almost over and abandoned the city lest they be captured. The retreating Confederates chose to burn military supplies rather than let them fall into Union hands; the resulting fire destroyed much of central Richmond.

Contents
1 Strategic and symbolic significance
1.1 Capital of the Confederacy
1.2 Industrial center
2 Peninsula Campaign
2.1 Seven Days Battles
3 Mid-war years
4 Evacuation, burning, and capture of Richmond
5 Legacy
6 In popular culture
7 Notes
8 Further reading
8.1 Primary sources
9 External links
Strategic and symbolic significance

Virginia State Capitol, used as the Confederate Capitol. To the left is the Customs House, used by the Confederate Department of the Treasury and the offices of the President and Vice-President.
In the 1860 United States Census, Richmond was the 25th largest urban area in the United States, with a population of 37,910.[1][2] The city had been the capital of Virginia since 1780, and became the third largest city in the Confederacy.[3]

Capital of the Confederacy
The Confederate States of America was formed in early 1861 from the first states to secede from the Union. Montgomery, Alabama, was selected as the Confederate capital.

After the Confederate Army fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, beginning the Civil War, additional states seceded. Virginia voted to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861, and existed briefly there after as a republic before joining the Confederacy on June 19, 1861. However, on May 8, 1861, in the Confederate Capital City of Montgomery, Alabama, the decision was made to name the City of Richmond, Virginia as the new Capital of the Confederacy. The Confederate capital was moved to Richmond in recognition of Virginia's strategic importance. Virginia was the South's industrial center, with an industrial output nearly equal to that of all other Confederate states combined. The Confederacy also hoped the move would consolidate its hold on the state, since it had difficulty securing other states bordering the Union.[4]

The Seal of the Confederate States, adopted April 30, 1863, features a depiction of George Washington based on the Washington Monument adjacent to the Confederate Capitol building.

Richmond remained the capital of the Confederacy until April 2, 1865, at which point the government evacuated and was re-established, albeit briefly, in Danville, Virginia.[5]

Industrial center

The Tredegar Iron Works (1865)
Positioned on the Fall Line along the James River, the city had ready access to an ample supply of hydropower to run mills and factories.

The Tredegar Iron Works, sprawling along the James River, supplied high-quality munitions to the Confederacy during the war. The company also manufactured railroad steam locomotives in the same period. Tredegar is also credited with the production of approximately 10,000 artillery pieces during the war which was about half of the South's total domestic production of artillery between the war years of 1861–1865. The foundry made the 723 tons of armor plating that covered the CSS Virginia (the former USS Merrimack), which fought the first battle between ironclad warships in March 1862. The Tredegar works were adjacent to the Richmond Arsenal, which was recommissioned in the lead-up to the war. On Brown's Island, the Confederate States Laboratory was established to consolidate explosives production to an isolated setting in the eventuality of an accidental explosion.

Numerous smaller factories in Richmond produced tents, uniforms, harnesses and leather goods, swords and bayonets, and other war material. As the war progressed, the city's warehouses became the supply and logistical center for much of the Confederate forces within the Eastern Theater.

Richmond was also a transportation hub. It was the terminus of five railroads: the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad; the Virginia Central Railroad; the Richmond and York River Railroad; the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad; and the Richmond and Danville Railroad. In addition, the James River and Kanawha Canal ran through it with access to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. At the fall of Richmond in April 1865, all but the Richmond and Danville Railroad and the canal had effectively been cut off by Union forces.

Peninsula Campaign
In the late spring of 1862, a large Federal army under Major General George B. McClellan landed on the Virginia Peninsula. McClellan, who had enjoyed early publicity from a series of successes in western Virginia, was assigned the task of seizing and occupying Richmond. His military maneuvers and the resulting battles and engagements became collectively known as the Peninsula Campaign, culminating in the Seven Days Battles.

McClellan's starting base was the Union-held Fort Monroe at the eastern tip of the Peninsula. Efforts to take Richmond by the James River were successfully blocked by Confederate defenses at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff on May 15, about eight miles downstream from Richmond. The Union Army advance was halted shortly outside of the city at the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31 and June 1, 1862 (near the site of what is now Richmond International Airport).

Seven Days Battles
Main article: Seven Days Battles
Over a period of seven days from June 25 to July 1, 1862, Richmond's defensive line of batteries and fortifications set up under General Robert E. Lee, a daring ride around the Union Army by Confederate cavalry under General J.E.B. Stuart, and an unexpected appearance of General Stonewall Jackson's famous "foot cavalry" combined to unnerve the ever-cautious McClellan, and he initiated a Union retreat before Richmond.

Even as other portions of the South were already falling, the failure of the Peninsula Campaign to take Richmond led to almost three more years of warfare between the states.

Mid-war years

Libby Prison in 1865, viewed from Dock Street
As a result of its proximity to the battlefields of the Eastern Theater and its high level of defense, the city processed many casualties of both sides: as home to numerous hospitals (the largest such being Chimborazo Hospital), prisons (notably Libby Prison, Castle Thunder, and Belle Isle), and various cemeteries.

On March 13, 1863, the Confederate Laboratory on Brown's Island was rocked by an explosion that killed dozens of workers.

Bread riots in Richmond
On April 2, 1863, the city was beset by a large bread riot as housewives could no longer afford very high food prices and broke into stores. The riot was organized by Mary Jackson, a huckster and the mother of a soldier.[6] The militia was called out to end the riot.[7]

The Confederacy hit its high-water mark at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Subsequent campaigning in the balance of the year failed to bring about a decisive battle, and Richmond residents settled down to the winter of 1863–64 mostly still optimistic about the Confederacy's fortunes.

One of the Civil War's most daring prison breaks, the Libby Prison escape, took place in February 1864 when more than 100 Federal captives escaped and fled into the night. Fewer than half were recaptured, with the majority reaching Union lines and safety. The city was shaken shortly thereafter by the March 2, 1864 Dahlgren Affair, a failed Union raid on the city.

Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign resulted in Robert E. Lee's Confederate army retiring to the vicinity of Richmond and Petersburg, where they checked Grant's progress.

Richmond skyline after the Evacuation Fire, viewed from across the James. The burnt-out Mayo Bridge is in the foreground
Evacuation, burning, and capture of Richmond

Map of Richmond during the war; areas burnt during the evacuation in red
After a long siege, Grant captured Petersburg and Richmond in early April 1865. As the fall of Petersburg became imminent, on Evacuation Sunday (April 2), President Davis, his Cabinet, and the Confederate defenders abandoned Richmond and fled south on the last open railroad line, the Richmond and Danville.

The retreating soldiers were under orders to set fire to bridges, the armory, and supply warehouses as they left. The fire in the largely abandoned city spread out of control, and large parts of Richmond were destroyed, reaching to the very edge of Capitol Square mostly unchecked. The conflagration was not completely extinguished until the mayor and other civilians went to the Union lines east of Richmond on New Market Road (now State Route 5) and surrendered the city the next day. Union troops put out the raging fires in the city. The event became known as the Evacuation Fire. The occupation was overseen by General Godfrey Weitzel and later General Edward Ord.

President Lincoln, who had been visiting General Grant and staying nearby at City Point, toured the fallen city (April 4–7) by foot and carriage with his young son Tad, and visited the former White House of the Confederacy and the Virginia State Capitol.

About one week after the evacuation of Richmond, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9 ending the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. Within the same week, on the evening of April 14, President Lincoln was assassinated in Washington D.C. by the Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.

Damage from the Evacuation Fire

Remains of a locomotive of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad

Damage near the Armory. Albumen print, 1865

Ruins of the Gallego Mills

Ruins in the commercial district

Exchange Bank in Richmond

Legacy

The Jefferson Davis Memorial, located at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Davis Avenue in Richmond
Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery is the final burial place of many Civil War notables, including Jefferson Davis, Stuart, former U.S. President and Confederate Congressman John Tyler, Virginia Governors and Confederate Generals Henry A. Wise and William "Extra Billy" Smith, Tredegar Iron Works owner and Confederate Brigadier General Joseph Reid Anderson, and Major Generals George Pickett, Fitzhugh Lee, Henry Heth, and John Imboden. A large, stone pyramid dominates the Confederate Soldiers' section, where over 18,000 (many of whom are unknown) Confederates are buried.

War dead were also buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Shockoe Hill Cemetery, and the Cemetery for Hebrew Confederate Soldiers section of the Hebrew Cemetery. Numerous Union dead who were buried at these sites were re-interred after the war to several national cemeteries outside of the city.

The city has a number of markers and monuments commemorating the Civil War and the city's role in the Confederacy. Monument Avenue was laid out in 1887, with a series of monuments at various intersections honoring the city's Confederate heroes. Included (east to west) were J.E.B. Stuart, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Matthew F. Maury.

The Richmond National Battlefield Park, a unit of the National Park Service, maintains several battlefields from the Peninsula Campaign and subsequent actions. A driving tour through Civil War sites in Richmond and its surrounding counties is maintained by Virginia Civil War Trails. The White House of the Confederacy (part of the private, non-profit Museum of the Confederacy) has been fully restored to its wartime appearance and is open for daily tours. Immediately next door to the White House, the internationally renowned Museum of the Confederacy houses the largest comprehensive collection of artifacts and personal effects relating to the Confederacy. Other museums include the Virginia Historical Society. A statue of Lincoln, commemorating his visit to the former Confederate capitol, was unveiled in 2003, causing controversy.[8]

In popular culture
The Charlie Daniels Band song, "Trudy", compares the taking of Richmond by Grant with the narrator saying that he was "raking in chips like Grant took Richmond" in a poker game.

In 1969 The Band released "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", which features the lyric, '...by May the 10th (1865) Richmond had fell, it was a time I remember oh so well'. On May 10, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, fleeing Richmond and having dissolved the Confederate government, was captured by Union forces in Irwinville, Georgia.

The Battle of Richmond
August 29-30, 1862

The Battle of Richmond Marker image. Click for full size.
By Lee Hattabaugh, May 6, 2010
1. The Battle of Richmond Marker
Inscription. In the summer of 1862 the Confederacy took the offensive

Robert E. Lee's army advanced into Maryland. Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn's armies marched toward Corinth, Mississippi. Braxton Bragg and Kirby Smith moved out of Tennessee and into Kentucky. It was Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's battle-hardened army that engaged the untried Union soldiers at the four engagements that comprised the Battle of Richmond.

The first engagement took place at Big Hill on August 23, 1862. A skirmish on the afternoon of August 29 was followed by three major engagements the next day. The first took place near Kingston. You now stand in the center of that battlefield. The second engagement was at Rogersville (the area adjacent to the present day intersection of US 25 and US 421). The third took place in Richmond at the City Cemetery.

The battle of Richmond was an overwhelming Confederate victory

Over 5,353 of the 6,500 Union soldiers sent to stop the 9,000 Confederates were killed, wounded, or captured, most of them captured, making the Battle of Richmond one of the most decisive Confederate victories of the entire Civil War.

The Confederate success was short-lived. On October 8, three weeks after his victory at Munfordville, Gen. Braxton Bragg's Confederate army fought Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army at Perryville.
The Battle of Richmond Marker image. Click for full size.
By Lee Hattabaugh, May 6, 2010
2. The Battle of Richmond Marker
The Battle of Richmond was part of a Confederate invasion of Kentucky that resulted in major battles at Richmond, Munfordville, and Perryville.
After six bloody hour the Confederates pulled back to Harrodsburg. Gen. Kirby Smith reached Harrodsburg two days after Bragg's defeat and their armies began the long march back to Tennessee.

The other Confederate armies met with similar fates. Price and Van Dorn were defeated at Corinth. Neither side could claim victory after the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history, but at its conclusion Robert E. Lee retreated. This "victory" gave Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which would forever change the nation.

Erected by Civil War Discovery Trail.

Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in this topic list: War, US Civil. In addition, it is included in the Battlefield Trails - Civil War series list. A significant historical month for this entry is October 1862.

Location. 37° 39.844′ N, 84° 15.063′ W. Marker is near Richmond, Kentucky, in Madison County. Marker can be reached from Battlefield Memorial Highway (U.S. 421), on the right when traveling south. Marker is located on the grounds of the Battle of Richmond battlefield park at the Pleasant View Farm. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Richmond KY 40475, United States of America. Touch for directions.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. A different marker also named Battle of Richmond (here, next to this marker); Slavery at Pleasant View Farm (here, next
The Battle of Richmond Marker image. Click for full size.
By Brandon Fletcher, March 30, 2012
3. The Battle of Richmond Marker
Marker is on the left in relation to Pleasant View Farm
to this marker); The Union Trail (about 300 feet away, measured in a direct line); "Good, Common-Sense Soldiering" (about 400 feet away); Sharpshooters Check The Union Right (about 500 feet away); Saving the Richmond Battlefield (about 600 feet away); "The Loud Mouthed Dogs of War Were Unleashed" (about 600 feet away); Barnett Burial Ground (approx. 0.2 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Richmond.

Related markers. Click here for a list of markers that are related to this marker. The Battle of Richmond, Kentucky, by Markers

The Battle of Richmond at Pleasant View Farm image. Click for full size.
By Brandon Fletcher, March 30, 2012
4. The Battle of Richmond at Pleasant View Farm

Credits. This page was last revised on June 16, 2016. It was originally submitted on June 7, 2010, by Lee Hattabaugh of Capshaw, Alabama. This page has been viewed 1,101 times since then and 30 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on June 7, 2010, by Lee Hattabaugh of Capshaw, Alabama. 3. submitted on July 24, 2015, by Brandon Fletcher of Chattanooga, Tennessee. 4. submitted on July 27, 2015, by Brandon Fletcher of Chattanooga, Tennessee. • Craig Swain was the editor who published this page.

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