In 1860 the city of Richmond, Virginia, had grown to become the 25th largest city in the United States with a population of nearly 38,000. Located at the falls of James
River, Richmond was one of the South’s most developed and bustling cities during the 19th century.
When the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 14, 1861, Virginia had not yet seceded from the nation. As a result, the Confederacy set up its government quarters in Montgomery, Alabama. However, due to Richmond’s industry as well as its role as the capital of Virginia’s state government, the Confederate leaders were hopeful that Richmond would soon become the permanent capital of the Confederate States of America.
A few days following Virginia’s secession on April 17, 1861, the Virginia convention extended an invitation to the government officials to relocate the capital to Richmond, thus making it a target for Union attack. On May 20, the Confederate government voted to move permanently the capital from Montgomery to Richmond. This vote marked the beginning of four years of change and conflict for Richmond.
Many historians argue that the Confederates made a strategic error placing their capital in Richmond, thus making it a target for Union attacks. Despite historians’ views, however, the Confederates had substantial reason to place their capital in Richmond. Richmond’s location, though only 106 miles from the Union’s capitol in Washington, D. C., was an ideal site for the Confederate’s capital. It was the home of important manufacturing concerns like the Tredegar Iron Works. Tredegar, which produced more than 50 locomotives for Southern railroads between 1850 and 1855 alone, was not the only manufacturing establishment in the new capital city. Richmond had massive iron, flour, and tobacco mills in addition to its surrounding agricultural areas. Richmond was also the transportation hub of the South. Not only was it Virginia’s largest port city via the James River and the Chesapeake Bay, but it was also very well connected to a number of the large cities on the Eastern seaboard due to its extensive railroads.
Richmond was the focus of the Union military strategy, characterized by the popular war cry “On to Richmond!” As a result, its citizens experienced a number of challenges. The first challenge was excessive inflation. The influx of the rebel government—officials, workers, and their families and slaves—as well as a considerable shortage of housing caused this rampant inflation. Richmond’s population increased threefold to almost 100,000 by the war’s end, which included a substantial number of refugees. The city also held 13,000 prisoners in prisons such as Belle Isle, Libby Prison, and Castle Thunder. This dramatic increase put a considerable amount of strain on Richmond’s municipal services such as the markets, the fire and police forces, and the public waterworks and gasworks.
The second immediate challenge faced by Richmond’s inhabitants was a steep increase in crime. The significant rise in population, the instability of the Confederate currency, and the transformation of Richmond into a crowded military town caused an increase of muggings and prostitution. In order to prevent the further rise of crime in and around the city of Richmond, martial law within a 10-mile radius of the city was declared on March 1, 1862.
In spite of the conflict that raged around the city, the general mood of Richmond remained relatively high during the first two years of the war. The citizens of Richmond did their best to aid the wounded and the sick. Numerous hospitals were established throughout the city, including Chimborazo Hospital in the Church Hill section. There were also at least 60 smaller hospitals run by the government, the state, and private institutions that were located throughout the city. At the same time, Confederate dead began filling Richmond’s cemeteries: Oakwood, Shockoe, and Hollywood. Famous Confederate officers and officials such as J. E. B. Stuart, George E. Pickett, and Jee-EERSON Davis and his family are all buried in Hollywood Cemetery.
Most important, Richmond was the strategic target of the Army of the Potomac, and its capture became a major aim of the Northern war effort. As a result, a series of forts and trenches surrounded the city to defend it from the campaigns of the Union forces. Despite numerous threats by Union troops during the first three years of the war, Robert E. Lee’s army was successful in pushing back the Union attack. During the spring of 1864, the Union forces finally broke their defenses and cut the city’s rail lines.
By cutting these lines, both the citizens and the military in Richmond found it difficult to remain adequately supplied. This feat isolated Richmond, and its inhabitants suffered greatly during the final year of the Civil War. When Lee’s lines were finally cut at the Battle oe Five Forks on April 1, 1865, Lee alerted Jeeeerson Davis that Richmond must be evacuated. In response to Lee’s notice, the Confederate government abandoned the city on April 2, 1865. As the government, military, and citizens of Richmond fled the city, they destroyed not only the city’s supplies of tobacco and cotton but they also set fire
The ruins of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, after it was burned down by its own residents to thwart the oncoming advance of Union general Ulysses S. Grant (Hulton/Archive)
To bridges and railroads to make the city inaccessible. Due to the high winds, the fires spread throughout the city with unprecedented speed, a task that proved to be too large for Richmond’s firemen to control. As a result, this evacuation fire consumed more than 800 buildings in the downtown area; Richmond literally lay in smoking ruins.
After the destruction of the Confederate capital, Lee’s army did not last a week. On April 7, 1865, Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The short amount of time it took for the Coneederate army to surrender demonstrates how vital Richmond had been as both a place and a symbol to Lee’s army throughout the four years of the Civil War.
Though Richmond was no longer the industrial and transportation hub of Virginia, it did remain the capital following the war. Today it serves as a living museum of the lost cause. Monument Avenue, a street lined with monuments of notable Confederate leaders, the White House of the Confederacy, and the Lee House all serve as reminders of the history of Richmond during the four years of the Civil War.
See also homeeront; Petersburg campaign.
Further reading: Ernest B. Furguson, Ashes of Glory: Rich-mond at War (New York: Knopf, 1996); Gregg D. Kimball, American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000); Richard M. Lee, General Lee's City: An Illustrated Guide to the Historic Sites of Confederate Richmond (McLean, Va.: EPM Publications, 1987); Mike Wright, City under Siege: Richmond in the Civil War (Lan-ham, Md.: Madison Books, 1995).
—Megan Quinn
Rosecrans, William S. (1819-1898) Union general, politician
A Union general in the western theater of operations, William Starke Rosecrans was born on September 6, 1819, at his father’s farm in Delaware County, Ohio.
Ranking fifth out of 51 cadets in the United States Military Academy at West Point class of 1842, he remained at the academy teaching engineering and performing various military duties after graduation. During the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, he saw no combat service but instead remained in the Northeast, supervising the construction of fortifications at Newport, Rhode Island. Rosecrans resigned from the service in 1854 to embark on a career as an engineer and businessman.
Following the Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Rosecrans volunteered his services and was appointed colonel of the 23rd Ohio in June 1861. Rosecrans quickly advanced and succeeded Gen. George
Brinton McClellan in command of the Department of Ohio. In November 1861, Brig. Gen. Rosecrans defeated Robert E. Lee’s Coneederate army in the Allegheny Mountains, facilitating the creation of the state of West Virginia. Assigned to the western theater in May 1862, now Maj. Gen. Rosecrans led the Army of the Mississippi in the successful Battle at luka (September 1862) and the Battle oe Corinth (October 3-4, 1862).
Rosecrans assumed command of the Army of the Cumberland in Nashville on October 27, 1862. Marching southeast on December 26th, he confronted Confederate general Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee near Murfreesboro on December 31. After the bloody two-day Battle oe Murereesboro, the Confederates retreated. His June 1863 Tullahoma campaign successfully drove Bragg out of Tennessee but failed to destroy the Confederate army. Crossing the Tennessee River in the beginning of September, he captured Chattanooga. However, the Confederate commander, now reinforced by troops from Virginia and Mississippi, counterattacked on September 18 at Chickamauga Creek, southeast of the city. Although Rosecrans commanded ably on September 19, he made a tactical mistake the next day, leaving a gap in his line. Bragg exploited Rosecrans’s error and drove the Union army from the battlefield. Fleeing to Chattanooga ahead of his troops, Rosecrans lost the moral authority to lead his army and was relieved of his duty in October. His final active command was in the Department of Missouri in 1864.
Resigning from the service in 1867, he became minister to Mexico in 1868. Replaced by President Ulysses S. Grant, with whom he had a long-standing feud, Rosecrans became a resident of California. He served two terms in Congress (1880-85) and remained active in veterans’ affairs. He died at his Redondo ranch, near Los Angeles, on March 11, 1898. His remains were transferred with full military honors to Arlington National Cemetery in May 1902.
See also Chickamauga, Battle oe.
Further reading: William M. Lamers, The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, U. S.A. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1961); Steven E. Woodworth, Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998).
—Stephen A. Bourque
World History
