The Confederate Government evacuates its capital of Richmond, hours before victorious Union troops march in

With overwhelming Union action battering his army, Confederate General Robert E. Lee telegraphed his government in Richmond that the city must be immediately abandoned. During the day, hasty preparations ended with the 11 p.m. departure of President Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet by train for Danville, Virginia. Behind them, Richmond was in chaos. Mobs roamed the streets and flames from fired stores spread, eventually gutting more than seven hundred buildings in the business district.  (By John Osborne) 
 
Source Citation
Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America (Hartford, CT:: T. Belknap, 1868), III: 545-548.
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers
Richmond, VA
Date
George F. Shepley, Orders for the Occupation of Richmond, Virginia, April 1865
George D. Prentice, Editorial on the fall of Richmond, Louisville Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, April 4, 1865
Editorial, "The Fall of Richmond and Southern Feeling," New York Times, April 6, 1865
Editorial, "Grant's Negro Troops," Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1865
William T. Sherman to Ulysses S. Grant, Goldsboro, North Carolina, April 8, 1865
How to Cite This Page: "The Confederate Government evacuates its capital of Richmond, hours before victorious Union troops march in," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/43712.