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Photographer: Bernard Fisher
Taken: October 25, 2009
Caption: Fall of Richmond (left panel)
Additional Description: From this spot, you can see the remains of a bridge that marked the beginning of Richmond’s role as the capital of the Confederate States of America. On May 29, 1861, President and Mrs. Jefferson Davis came to the city for the first time, aboard the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad — crossing the James River over the bridge whose piers can still be seen about 200 yards from here.

Farther in the distance are the remains of the Richmond & Danville Railroad bridge, across which Davis and the Confederate government left the city just hours before the Union army arrived in April 1865. In the four years between these two journeys, Richmond, a city that at first had hesitated to join the rebellion, had become the political and economic center of the Confederate cause and the Union army’s primary strategic target.

Jefferson Davis, attending services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, received news that the Union army had broken through the Petersburg lines.

In the siege of 1864-1865, Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s outnumbered forces, spread thinly in trenches extending from east of Richmond to south of Petersburg, held out against Union forces for almost a year.

On April 2, the day after Union general Philip H. Sheridan overwhelmed Lee’s right flank, Union general Ulysses S. Grant broke through the Petersburg lines in three places. Lee retreated westward the same day, leaving Richmond without defenses against the Union army.

On the top left is a portrait of “Jefferson Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy, c. 1850.” Valentine Museum

The left background consist of an “1856 map of Richmond” highlighting the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad Bridge, Richmond & Danville Railroad Bridge, and Mayo’s Bridge. Valentine Museum

In the center is a photo of the “Soldiers of the First Virginia Regiment before the start of the war.” Valentine Museum

On the right is a photo of “Union infantry in the Petersburg trenches early in 1865. Photograph by Mathew Brady.” Valentine Museum
Submitted: October 28, 2009, by Bernard Fisher of Richmond, Virginia.
Database Locator Identification Number: p82415
File Size: 0.970 Megabytes

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