The Fall of Confederate Richmond
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- čas přidán 23. 05. 2016
- On the morning of Sunday April 2, 1865 Confederate lines near Petersburg broke after a nine month seige. The retreat of the army left the Confederate capital of Richmond, 25 miles to the north, defenseless. This video provides a visual overview of some of the most significant events of the dramatic days that followed.
Over the next three days, the Confederate government evacuated, mobs looted countless stores, fire consumed as many as a thousand buildings, the Union army occupied the city, thousands were emancipated from bondage, and President Abraham Lincoln toured the former Confederate Capital. This animated map illustrates how these momentous events unfolded in time and space.
dsl.richmond.edu/april1865/
A movie on the fall of Richmond and its aftermath would be nice. Or some kind of mini-series on HBO would be perfecter.
Might be hard, seeing how it was "capital" of the Confederacy
Love the detailed history of the Richmond abandonment. Love the detail of Lincoln 's full day there
Thank you
This clearly wasn't just another military withdrawal, but a skedaddle of the guilty. Most senior members of the CSA Government, sensing the jig was finally up, had already begun to look primarily to themselves and the escape/futures of themselves and their families, rather than to the public good or the safety of the city. There were plans to meet up again farther south to "reconvene" the rebel Administration, but that happened only on a side road in GA, on the back of a wagon, and lasted less than a hour before they all took to their heels again. The whole Richmond crowd had by then degenerated into a criminal gang with a strong consciousness of guilt. Jeff Davis was captured soon after that meeting -- and, despite what you hear from Southern apologists, DID attempt to escape detention while dressed in women's clothing, having abandoned his own wife and maid to the mercy of the captors. Only his fine, heavy riding boots -- unlikely to be worn by a woman -- gave him away to a sharp-eyed Union officer.
So when do you plan to go around to all the confederate cemeteries, dig up the corpses, and hang them?
@@penultimateh766 it's never too late....
@@honorguardsfencingclub7322 based
Sad how people like you still feel the need to tell ridiculous lies about the Confederacy more than 150 years after its demise. You must lie awake at night terrified of the Confederate boogeymen in your closet.
@George Song true sigma male grind set.
Thank you. Very clean, clear and informative. The complete lack of soppy
music was perfect. So was the objective tone of voice.
This is an awesome video! I checked the channel hoping for similar content but this is it???
Oh man, I'm crushed! I think many people would LOVE to see more videos like this!
Elmer Ellsworth's raid and subsequent death, for example, or even a breakdown of a battle or a part of a battle.
Can't like this enough. Very well done.
I have a great-great-grandfather who was a member of the Army of Nothern Virginia, and he was captured by the Union army while recuperating in a hospital in Richmond. He was also, fortunately, too ill to participate at Gettysburg,
My great grandfather's older brother , Army of Northern Virginia, 11th Va Infantry, also was in a Richmond Hospital when it fell.
This video really helped my understand and appreciate my city more. I know this is 5 years old, but I believe more videos like this would give people and appreciate for the history which is literally under our feet here and all over the surrounding area.
Excellent! The best interactive I’ve seen on the civil war and I’ve had a close interest in it for years.
Great visual and content! Thank you
Great video! Enjoyed it
well put together my friend
It is astonishing and disturbing to read some of the comments. The war was fought because the South wanted the (states) right to extend and expand slavery. The south seceded because they thought Lincoln might prevent the south from expanding slavery. Many politicians in the south wanted to invade Cuba as part of slavery expansion. Remember that slaves constituted 3/5 of a person as far as calculation population and the number of representatives in Congress. Very Democratic !!!
The south fought to preserve their “right” to have and to expand slavery. A truly noble cause. The slave trade was abolished in the UK in 1807. And slavery itself in UK 1833. So it’s not like the USA was ahead of the curve.
The Barbary pirates around this time were enslaving whites and selling them to the Ottoman Empire. People throughout the USA objected to this.
The “states right” the south was fighting for was slavery. If you read Jefferson Davis’ speeches in Congress in the 1850s and 1860s it is very very very clear what the conflict was about. It is about the preservation of oligarchy and slavery. Truly an exceptionally honorable cause.
So how do you explain when the war broke out, the Union had several slave states: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and later West Virginia? Maryland had slaves until 1864, Kentucky until 1865, Missouri until 1865, West Virginia 1865, Delaware was December 1865 (after the Civil War was over!) so that doesn't quite fit the narrative of the pious Union fighting to end slavery as you describe it.
@@TR-Mead Lincoln had no authority to abolish slavery since it was written in the Constitution. He did have that authority in the states under rebellion. Slaves being contraband property.
@@SandfordSmythe Doesn't negate the fact there were slave holding states in the Union fighting against slave holding states in the south.
@@TR-Mead But what is your point here beyond superficial appearances? The purpose of the war evolved into defeating the South in order to gain the power needed to abolish slavery. This wasn't possible until the 13th Amendment.
@@SandfordSmythe The fact that the Union wasn't fighting just to abolish slavery when key portions of their structure had slaves. That would be as ridiculous as saying you are fighting to defeat the Nazi's but 30% of our strength are Nazi's. You say "purpose of the war evolved into" so you acknowledge the inaccurate statement of the beginnings. Have a good day.
Awesome vid. Hope you do more
A quick and explanative short video.
I love this content. Thank you
this video is fantastic
A powerful account - all the more so for being understated.
nice job well done
Good summary. They did however fail to mention that it was USCT troops who entered the city first, barely, it was a race with other soldiers.
The freed slaves lined the streets and cheered them.
My great-great-granduncle defended the city in 1864-65. He commanded an artillery battery near where Richmond Airport is today and withdrew with his unit to Appomattox where he surrendered them.
Thanks
3:02 if it’s around noon then it’d be 12:45pm instead of 12:45am
Wait... so most of the damage was done by the retreating forces? lmao
The South was very fortunate in one aspect. Not all of the Union generals were scorched earth, like Sherman.
Sherman only allowed a scorched earth policy where it was beneficial to the war. Atlanta, Colombia and Charleston all were burned when warehouses of munitions, cotton and tobacco were burned by fleeing Confederate units to keep them out of Union hands and to slow the pursuit by leaving the fires for the Federals to fight.
that for you is "lucky" haha
The seige could have been ended much sooner. The Confed lines were stretched ridiculously thin.
Grant was trying to destroy the Confederate Army and we was helping him do it
Lee had said that once his troops were committed to defending fixed locations, the war was over.
@@SandfordSmythe Indeed. Mobility and audacity were his best assets. Once pinned down, the Union could simply produce more men and munitions to the field until overwhelmed.
Watching the fires on the map kinda reminded me of SimCity.
The night they drove old Dixie down
I live in Richmond and been to all these places.
I didn't know that Lincoln had visited
So I gather the Confederates upon leaving decided to destroy the town of Richmond.
It's my understanding from the narrative that the locals burned the tobacco warehouses to deny the contents to the Union. Since everything was made of wood, and a stiff south wind was blowing, the fire spread to encompass about 20 city blocks up to what today is Bank St., north of Main St.
@@checkyoursix5623 So the burning of a warehouse was not for destroying munitions but rather to prevent infantry men from having a cigar. Geeeze how dumb of a decision for it harmed so many innocent families of Richmond. The illogical decisions just baffles me.
@@aerofpv2109
During the war it was not uncommon for the Union Army to ship captured confederate cotton and tobacco north and sell it on the world market as seized contraband to pay of United States war debts.
Not deliberately, but carelessly. The two warships that were blown up apparently sent flaming debris flying, and the tobacco warehouses also had things scattered on the wind. This set the main arsenal on fire, which contained thousands upon thousands of shells. From there, devastation was scattered across much of the city.
@@TheLAGopher Thank you kindly. That makes sense but unfortunately the winds spread that fire in Richmond destroying a large swath of it.
Confederates have been REAL quiet since this dropped
Nice and short, well narrated, could of been a little Louder, and the graphics a little clearer. Thank You so much. WYO, Robert, 🇨🇦🇺🇲🇨🇦🇺🇲👀👀👍👍🧐🧐🙏🙏
Richmond was not one of Grants military objectives, Lees army was. Those troops whose line of march would take them thru the city did so. Only a part of one Union Corps entered the city and it was primarily there for humanitarian reasons. Lincolns visit was premature and probably ill advised especially when you consider he had little security around him.
Kek traitors got dunked on
North were the invaders, not the south.
@@bills.1390 south fired the first shots. Don’t start a fight you can’t finish
@@diehard2705 The Southern States had announced that they would secede, and saw themselves as being a separate nation. This was right before Lincoln entered office. Lincoln believed that the fort was federal territory, and thus believed that the Union ships moving in had a right to be there. He toyed with the idea of abandoning the fort, which would have meant recognizing Southern independence. Confederate President Jefferson didn’t want to be viewed as an aggressor, however on April 13th, 1861, orders were given to fire on the fort when it was being resupplied. Let me point out here that nobody was killed or even hurt at Fort Sumter, and Lincoln wrote a letter to his naval commander Gustavous Fox which said in it; “You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.”
@@donttreadonme4355 Oh cool so you admit that the south fired the first shots and started the war? Neato!
@@diehard2705 you should read the comment again
Precedence, not precedent
Well that plan backfired
Sad day in our history.
Great day since it spelled the end of the treasonous slaver rebellion of the South
eye of the beholder.
My great great grandfather fought for the Virginia battle brigade and was captured by the union, fortunately he escaped and was taken in by the Islamic Gaurd corps of North Carolina
Damn. Now if only they redistrubuted all the plantation land after the war :(
Too bad what a shame
When Lincoln arrived at the Confederate White House, didn't he have a seat at Jeff Davis' desk to conduct his meeting? I'll bet that was a sight!😃
I have been to many battlefields of the civil war , and thankfull of their preservation. But I will never forget that the southern states, fought the United States and to form their own country. How would the world have been different if they had succeded.
At the heart of the union Victory and why the US is what it is, I feel is Sherman's taking of Atlanta. Without it Lincoln would have lost the election and a tired north would have sued for peace
It wouldn't have lasted - it couldn't have lasted.
Slavery served a single purpose in the southern states: to produce cotton and sugar in a time when it was very labor intensive and labor was in short supply.
The slave states were already facing the reality that there could be no more expansion of slavery and that free states would soon dominate them. They tried slave labor in the Midwest and Southwest but it simply wasn't profitable enough for other crops and therefore failed to catch on. Slavery was on its way out.
Additionally, even had the South won, slave labor was going to lose out to technology in the very near future. Machines would make slave labor utterly unnecessary and unprofitable, since the labor force needed to be fed and housed and clothed at the owners expense. Besides, skilled tradesmen are more important in a technological world than unskilled labor, and most slave owners did not want skilled slaves - it created problems for them. Slaves knew that those skills were profitable and in demand, and Northern industrialists would help skilled slaves escape in order to employ them.
A free South would be living on borrowed time. It would likely descend into despotism to maintain its hold on power once the justifications were gone, and would either be 'liberated' by the free North or would be overturned in a revolution by the middle and lower class whites unhappy with being ruled by an authoritarian regime of wealthy slave-owning oligarchs.
@@braedenh6858 ever read the Texas declaration of secession? Sounds pretty permanent to me
"She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as n___o slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, *and which her people intended should exist in all future time. "*
@@braedenh6858 - some of the Southern, later Confederate, elite had a scheme called the Golden Circle where all the countries bordering the Caribbean were to be subjugated. The circle refers to the ring of countries around that sea. Either to outnumber the free states in the USA by admitting a multitude of new slave states or, later, as the CSA, becoming itself a slave empire.
@@scotttracy9333 Beyond its purely military and economic impacts of the March to the Sea, there was also a profound psychological one. The March sent word flying through the armies of Lee and Johnston that Yankee troops were committing depredations back home -- and the fear of the revenge newly-freed Negroes might wreak was even greater. Many wives urged their husbands to return to protect them. Thus, the desertion rate jumped in both Southern forces. In his last week in the lines at Petersburg, Lee lost almost 200 men/day from a force then 24,000 strong at most. As it was intended to do, the March had ably demonstrated the helplessness of the Rebels to resist the Union, and the true cost of the War to those who would prolong it out of spite. It was already too late for the Geogians in the ranks, but SC and NC were clearly intended to be the next to get the Sherman treatment, and those states' troops deserted in droves. Also hitting the road early were the Texans, who had the farthest to travel.
Yo mama
Stand by Governor Northram🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 We coming
He's outta there, with his wokism & and CRT nonsense!
@@carywest9256 Governor Blackface was going to be out regardless, Virginia doesn't allow governors to serve successive terms. It was McAwful who lost top Youngkin by saying parents should have no say in how their children are educated.
What I don't understand is how europeans didn't take advantage of the civil war and invaded America
That didn't need to. The Wealthy Southerners of the South, took their Wealth off shore, by time the War Started. And they vacationed in Europe as the War Raged. And it they remained invested in both sides. That is why only 8% of the Southerners, who fought in the Civil War owned slaves...
Many of the Wealthy Southerners who went to Europe, left the plantations, in charge of their, so called Slaves, if they still owned Slaves. Because the Majority of the large plantations, and properties had been divided into, small individual 40 to
160 acre farms, with their children inheriting, their portion, years before the War. Starting around 1764, 1800 and 1807. Because Slavery had been outlawed In many states, by then. Research the original records.
Why invade America? The best outcome in the eyes of Europe was having two American republics who would balance each other out.
It appeared at first that the south would make that happen early in the war and the Europeans didn't have to risk facing the wrath of the USA
by becoming directly involved. By 1864, the Union had grown so strong that it could have pulled armies not being used in its two main lines of attack
(Grant and Sherman) and marched into Canada while the Union navy with its technological edge in Ironclad ships could have blocked the Royal Navy from being able to transport reinforcements across the Atlantic. The Europeans had a preview of the same American industrial potential that would be critical to winning two world wars in the 20th century.
Notice how after the Union victory, the British saw that the game was up, America would industrialize and reach great power status, and it
was better to start cultivating US friendship before a rising power such as Germany or the Russians did.
France did take advantage, but it invaded Mexico and set up a puppet state.
War is expensive. And for what gain?
Harder to do than it sounds -- even had Mexico helped. The US had the advantage of being the defender, knew the terrain, controlled most of the infrastructure, and had plenty of money in gold and silver (shipments from CA and NV Territories having never been cut off -- "Thanks, Battle of Glorieta Pass!"). Even approaching the US coasts would have been tricky for an invasion force, given our large and credibly-skilled Navy and several big Eastern ports. The Federals also had plenty of reserve military capacity, even in '62. The famous Southern-leaning historian Shelby Foote said that the North fought that war with one hand tied behind its back. Western emigration had never ended, thus depriving the North of probably150,000 military-aged men. Nor had railroad-building. Nor had frontier operations against the Indians, the temporary cessation of which could have freed up another 15+ experienced Volunteer infantry and cavalry regiments almost immediately. The North's war industry was in full expansion-mode; we would not have lacked for armaments and supplies, and in transporting them would have had the advantage of acting on interior lines (look it up). Finally, wrangling within the US Congress, in Lincoln's own Cabinet, and in the press -- all of which at times hampered the war effort against the South -- would have melted away in the face of a truly foreign threat.