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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS

 
 o
 
 The Capture and Occupation 
 of Richmond 
 
 April 3rd, 1865 
 
 By 
 
 Edward H. Ripley 
 
 Col. 9 th Vt. Inf. and Brevet Brig.-Genl. Vols. 
 
 Commanding ist Brigade, 3rd Division, 24th Army 
 Corps, Army of the James 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 1907
 
 FINAL SCENES AT THE CAPTURE AND OCCUPA- 
 TION OF RICHMOND, APRIL 3, 1865. 
 
 READ BY BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL EDWARD H. RIPLEY, 
 
 DEC. 5, 1906. 
 
 THIS paper is the story of the work of the First Brigade, 
 Third Division, of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, 
 which I had the honor to command at the capture and 
 occupation.of Richmond, April 3, 1865. It was written soon 
 after the war to fill a gap in a collection of some 400 of my 
 war letters collected and preserved by a thoughtful mother, 
 and is a description of an historical event which for grandeur 
 and spectacular effect had few if any equals in the course of 
 the Civil War. It necessarily is written in the first person ; 
 but a veteran who has the right to say proudly, of any 
 event of interest in the Civil War in which he participated, 
 "A part of which I was" will understand it. 
 
 On the night of the 2jth of March, 1865, the First Division 
 of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, under Brigadier-General 
 Robert S. (" Sandy") Foster of Indiana, and the inde- 
 pendent division, under Brevet Major-General John W. 
 Turner, led by Major-General John Gibbon, our corps 
 commander, and accompanied by Major-General E. O. 
 C. Ord, the commander of the Army of the James, then 
 holding the lines on the Bermuda front and the north 
 side of the James River, stealthily withdrew from their 
 trenches in front of Richmond, and by daylight of the 28th 
 had crossed the river and were well on their way to the left 
 of the Army of the Potomac. There they took their full 
 share of the bloody battles which Meade and Sheridan 
 delivered in quick succession, until Lee, breathless and 
 
 1023983
 
 2 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 exhausted, gave up the contest and surrendered at Appo- 
 mattox Courthouse. 
 
 Our division, the Third of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, 
 under Brigadier-General Charles Devens, was left behind to 
 extend over and hold the trenches thus evacuated. That 
 night I was withdrawn from our position at the right of 
 Fort Harrison, and stretched out in a thin line over the 
 ground recently held by the three brigades of Foster's 
 division. Daylight broke to find me established in General 
 Foster's abandoned headquarters at the sallyport on the 
 Newmarket road, at the salient of our lines, where we 
 approached most nearly to Richmond. 
 
 Here a new regiment was added to my command, and 
 about 500 convalescents and stragglers, representing nearly 
 every regiment in the other two divisions, were organized 
 into a regiment, equipped, and taken upon my rolls. The 
 brigade then comprised the following regiments: 
 
 The staff, 7. Officers. Men. 
 
 nth Ct. 26 412 Major Chas. Warren command- 
 
 ing. 
 1 3th N. H. 13 247 Lieutenant - Colonel Norman 
 
 Smith commanding. 
 
 igth Wis. 15 308 Major Vaughn commanding. 
 
 8ist N. Y. ii 83 Captain Betton commanding. 
 
 98th N. Y. 17 268 Lieutenant - Colonel William 
 
 Kreutzer commanding. 
 
 i39th N. Y. 16 306 Major Theo. Miller commanding. 
 
 Convalescents 14 546 
 
 A total of 119 2250 
 
 Of these my morning report showed 91 officers and 
 2219 privates for duty, and 90 officers and 1950 privates 
 effective. 
 
 We lay here without incident until Saturday evening, the 
 ist of April, when I received orders from General Grant to 
 hold the brigade under arms all night, massed and ready for 
 an assault on the enemy's works in our front; to spend the 
 night out on the outer vidette line, carefully watch for
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 3 
 
 signs of unusual movements on the part of the enemy with 
 whom we were in close contact, and, if I became suspicious 
 of uneasiness on their part, to send word to General Weit- 
 zel, the commander of the colored corps and of the forces 
 left on the north bank of the James, and assault at once 
 on my own responsibility. 
 
 When taps sounded that night the brigade was silently 
 massed in bivouac in column behind the sally through 
 our works across the Newmarket road. 
 
 Our videttes and those of the rebels were within easy 
 conversing distance, so that it seemed impossible for them 
 to make any movement unobserved. 
 
 It was a clear, starlight night, still and beautiful. I 
 can experience again through the lapse of the years, as my 
 thoughts go back to that dramatic scene, the peaceful round 
 of the hours, as I lay with my ear to the ground, listening 
 for a sign of life among the slumbering hosts of friends and 
 foes that environed me. 
 
 Hour after hour at the same moment the officers of the 
 pickets on both sides came up from the reserves and passed 
 along, the hushed sound of low voices breaking the solemn 
 stillness for a moment as the videttes reported to their relief, 
 and then with catlike caution retired to rest in the con- 
 scious unconsciousness of a picket reserve. 
 
 Sunday morning came with no apparent knowledge on 
 the part of the enemy of the gigantic blow that was uplifted 
 in the air beyond the Weldon Railroad and already descending 
 full of fate to the doomed Confederacy. They stayed quietly 
 in their camps, enjoying a peaceful Sabbath, under the 
 observation of the look-outs I had posted in the tops of 
 trees along my front. 
 
 Bursting full of great events as we knew the week would 
 be, nearing the end, as we saw from the crowds of despairing 
 Confederates who nightly threw away their arms and with 
 them all hope of their cause, and came into our lines, not a 
 man of us dreamed when night came that of all the laborious 
 Sundays of the long years we had passed with an armed foe 
 in our front, this was the last.
 
 4 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 As evening came the order for redoubled vigilance was 
 repeated. In had been a day of unusual solemnity, lying 
 through the dragging hours in the straining suspense of 
 waiting for the fateful word that would dash us against those 
 fearful walls of red earth, deep ditches, impenetrable abattis, 
 and thickly planted torpedoes, from which so many bloody 
 assaults of columns heavier than ours had been hurled back 
 with ease. It is not enjoyable to stand through a long 
 day and coolly contemplate the desperate chances of a for- 
 lorn hope, which was expected not to win, but to amuse the 
 enemy and hold him in place. 
 
 The night fell cloudy and dark as I plunged into the 
 mysterious silence and gloom for my last night on the picket 
 line. It passed uneventfully, as the preceding one had 
 passed, except that blue mist settled on the earth. About 
 4 o'clock in the morning a column of flame suddenly shot 
 high in the air in the direction of Richmond, quickly fol- 
 lowed by another and another. Then came the subdued 
 hum of noises far away toward the doomed city. To my 
 eager ears, drinking in the sounds from that mighty primeval 
 telephone the earth, as I lay with my ear pressed closely 
 to it, the low, supernatural rumbling seemed as though its 
 interior was alive with the busy motion of its myriad of the 
 dead. Still, strangely, no sound came from our immediate 
 front. We strained our eyes in vain to catch sight, through 
 the mist and darkness, of the opposing videttes. The first 
 gray of dawn showed us that, favored by the night and the 
 mist, they had, with the stillness of ghosts, been stealthily 
 withdrawn. 
 
 I quickly deployed our picket line as skirmishers, pushed 
 them on, and followed closely with the brigade, ready to 
 deploy, sending word to General Weitzel, through General 
 Devens, that I was advancing to the assault and to hurry 
 up supports. This was the first movement of any of the 
 troops along the Union line, and as we gained the parapet 
 of the rebel fortifications we found it deserted. 
 
 Pushing my skirmishers still forward I looked down the 
 line of Union defence toward Fort Brady our left, resting
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 5 
 
 on the James, which this higher ground commanded in its 
 view to see if the forward movement was general. Skir- 
 mishers were advancing, but at that moment, we alone were 
 in possession of the enemy's works. Alone the First Brigade 
 of the Third division, Twenty-fourth Army Corps, entirely 
 unsupported, was within the renowned and impregnable 
 defences of the rebel capital, happily without loss, although 
 the front of their abattis was planted thick with torpedoes. 
 
 Understanding that the order to assault quickly upon 
 detecting any movement of the enemy meant that General 
 Grant wished General Ewell, commanding the Confederate 
 forces on the north side of the James, attacked and held at 
 all hazards, I pushed on with the utmost haste to overtake 
 him and force him to fight. When first over the works the 
 excitement was intense and the men rushed wildly in every 
 direction, capturing and claiming guns for their respective 
 regiments, until a howling maniac in blue sat astride of 
 every one of the thickly planted guns in reach. It was some 
 time before the enthusiasm could be controlled and the 
 men got back to their ranks. The onward movement to 
 the second or inner line was rapid but cautious, not knowing 
 at what moment we might strike Ewell's rear guard, waiting 
 for us behind them. 
 
 At every instant the terrific explosions in the direction 
 of Richmond grew more frequent and great volumes of 
 black smoke rolled up into the heavens, showing that the 
 work of destruction begun by the rebels themselves was 
 going rapidly on. 
 
 The slower advance, while feeling our way over the 
 second line, gave the balance of our division time to over- 
 take us, which they did, falling in behind the First Brigade. 
 
 The headquarters cavalry, commanded by Major Stevens 
 of General Weitzel's staff, now passed us, and a light battery 
 came dashing up demanding the way on the Newmarket 
 road, apparently filled with a crazy ambition to gallop on, 
 attack Ewell, and capture the city with unsupported guns. 
 In possession of the road, and knowing no use for artillery 
 on the skirmish line, we refused to yield it. The eager,
 
 6 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 crack-brained young officer in command, frenzied with the 
 wild joy with which every heart was throbbing, seeing an 
 open field extending some distance ahead along our left 
 flank, rushed into it with his horses lashed into a mad 
 gallop and tried to run in ahead of us. The i3th New 
 Hampshire, at the head of the column, broke of its own in- 
 spiration into a sharp double-quick until the too impetuous 
 young artilleryman found himself pocketed in a swamp 
 with which the field was terminated. He then fell into 
 his proper place in the rear of the brigade. 
 
 From the second line, then past the inner batteries to 
 Rocketts, where it became more certain that Ewell had 
 made good his escape and there was to be no fight over the 
 city, not even with his rear guard, I rode backward and 
 forward along the column, exchanging congratulations with 
 the officers, and looking down into the flashing eyes and 
 quivering faces of the men as they glanced up at me in the 
 mute freemasonry of a common joy and glory. It was 
 hardly needed, so eager and furious was the march and so 
 well closed up the ranks from the anxiety of the rear regi- 
 ments to grasp the long-fought-for prize as soon as the head 
 of the column, but as I drifted back and forth along the 
 flank, and occasionally sat still in my saddle to enjoy the 
 sight of the long column rushing by, I sang out, as of old, 
 but never before so exultingly, that old, old song which will 
 never die out from the ears of the veteran until death shall 
 close them, "Close up, boys! Close up! No straggling in 
 the ranks of the First B rigade to-day. Close up ! Close up ! " 
 
 It was my last, as I stood up in my stirrups singing 
 the last refrain of a song sung for three long years: in the 
 golden sunshine of Southern springs, in the fierce heat and 
 choking dust of Southern summers, the mud and frosts 
 and snows of winter. Harsh, heartless, inexorable, it had 
 risen and pierced the midnight air in that valley crowded 
 with the tragedies of the war, the Shenandoah with its 
 quickly alternating triumphs and defeats, on the Penin- 
 sula with its deadly miasmas, and North Carolina amid 
 the gloom of its tar forests and the slumping of its soft
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 7 
 
 sands. Through the weary hours of the night it had risen 
 like the weird cry of the owl "Close up, men! Close up! 
 Close up, men ! Close up ! " 
 
 I stood there on the threshold of the rebel capital, with 
 the old cry upon my lips, and knew not that at that mo- 
 ment, by our incredible presence within those fateful lines, 
 the cruel war was at last over, and that that peace we had 
 so longed and prayed for, triumphant peace, hovered over 
 us and that I should never again haunt the flank of a 
 marching column with a heart steeled against all its natural 
 sympathies, and shout to men sick in body, sick at heart, 
 lame, foot-sore and exhausted, "Close up, men! Close 
 up!" I am glad that the last note of this cry fell a glad 
 refrain upon the ears of an exultant column, and glad that 
 I can look back in my memory into faces lighted up with 
 joy, instead of being haunted with the last memory of faces 
 stamped with the misery and wretchedness of a cruelly 
 forced march. 
 
 At last, about 7 o'clock in the morning, we approached 
 Rocketts, the steamboat landing at the lower end of the 
 city, where the rebel iron-clads had been lying. There I 
 received orders to deploy a strong line of guards across from 
 the river up the ravine of Gillies Creek, with orders to permit 
 no one to pass, but to turn every one back to join his com- 
 mand, and get ready for the formal entry into the city. I 
 was also ordered to dress up my own command and put all 
 my regimental bands at the head of the column. I hap- 
 pened to have the unusual number of three. While this 
 was going on an iron-clad, which was lying in the stream 
 abreast of us, the last of all the river fleet, blew up with a 
 terrible concussion, nearly knocking us off our feet and over- 
 whelming us with a tempest of black smoke, cinders, and 
 debris. I do not remember that any one was injured, yet 
 a part of it went over our heads into the fields beyond. The 
 roar of the exploding arsenals, magazines, and warehouses 
 filled with explosives of the ordnance bureau was deafening 
 and awe-inspiring. 
 
 At this moment Col. Geo. W. Hooker, assistant adjutant-
 
 8 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 general of the Third Division, rode up to me and said : " You 
 are in luck to-day, General. General Weitzel has given orders 
 that you are to have the head of the column in the triumphal 
 entry which we are ready to make into the city." I was, 
 of course, elated at this, for it would have been natural for 
 General Weitzel to have given to the colored troops of his own 
 corps the place^ of honor for this historical pageant, as Horace 
 Greeley, in his history of The American Conflict, wrongly 
 avers that he did, ignoring the presence of any but 
 colored troops in Richmond that day. This would have 
 been, however, great injustice to General Devens and to me, 
 for my brigade of his division was the first over the line, 
 and the first to reach the city at Rocketts, and Devens's was 
 the only division which kept its formation perfect and could 
 have attacked Ewell had he come to bay. My brigade was 
 at that moment at the head of the column because we had 
 taken it and kept it, and it belonged to us as a right and 
 not as a courtesy. No one got ahead of us but the little 
 squad of headquarters cavalry, which had overtaken and 
 passed us, and which did not pass the enemy's lines until 
 after my message had reached General Devens and been sent 
 by him to Weitzel. 
 
 At length every preparation was completed that could 
 give to the entry of the Union troops an imposing character. 
 No time could be wasted on this, as we seemed about to 
 plunge into a sea of fire, or rather the crater of an active 
 volcano, and if any portion of the doomed capital was to be 
 saved it had to be done quickly. When the word came, 
 with my three bands at the head of my column, I turned in 
 my saddle and cried "Forward!" to the eager troops. The 
 bands had arranged a succession of Union airs which had not 
 been heard for years in thestreets of the Confederate capital, 
 and had arranged to relieve each other so that there should 
 be no break in the exultant strain of patriotic music during 
 any portion of the march. 
 
 The route was up Main Street to Exchange Hotel, then 
 across by Governor Street to Capitol Square. The city was 
 packed with a surging mob of Confederate stragglers, ne-
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 9 
 
 groes, and released convicts, and mob rule had been su- 
 preme from the moment Ewell had crossed the James and 
 burned the bridges behind him. 
 
 The air was darkened by the thick tempest of black 
 smoke and cinders which swept the streets, and as we 
 penetrated deeper into the city the bands were nearly 
 drowned by the crashing of the falling walls, the roar of 
 the flames, and the terrific explosions of shells in the burning 
 warehouses. 
 
 Densely packed on either side of the street were thou- 
 sands upon thousands of blacks, until that moment slaves 
 in fact, for the emancipation proclamation had never be- 
 fore penetrated the rebel territory to strike their fetters off. 
 They fell upon their knees, throwing their hands wildly in 
 the air and shouting: " Glory to God! Glory to God! The 
 day of Jubilee hab come; Massa Linkum am here! Massa 
 Linkum am here!" while floods of tears poured down their 
 wild faces. They threw themselves down on their hands 
 and knees almost under our horses' feet to pray and give 
 thanks in the wild delirium of their sudden deliverance. 
 Although the shops had been, gutted and were open, the 
 houses were closed, and when we reached the better resi- 
 dence portion of the city the blinds were tightly shut and 
 none of the better class of the whites were to be seen, though 
 we occasionally saw an eye peering through the blinds. 
 
 At the gate of the square opposite the north entrance of 
 the Confederate capitol grounds an aide-de-camp of General 
 Weitzel was waiting with orders to halt the head of the col- 
 umn there and report to him at the eastern porch. I passed 
 through the gate into the park, followed by my staff and 
 cavalry escort, and made my way to him. I found the lawn 
 and shrubbery, through which the black smoke and burn- 
 ing cinders were swirling, crowded with the headquarters 
 cavalry of the corps and division commanders. Upon the 
 broad landing at the head of the tall flight of steps stood 
 General Weitzel and staff, the noble personality of General 
 Devens with his staff, and grouped around were the division 
 commanders of the Twenty-fifth Corps of colored troops,
 
 10 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 with the Hon. Joseph Mayo, the mayor of the city, and other 
 city officials. 
 
 These gentleman had driven out in a barouche to a point 
 where they met the head of the column and tendered, with 
 theatrical effect, the keys of the fallen city, and begged the 
 clemency and help oi the Northern victors. 
 
 I dismounted and ascended to General Weitzel, who stood 
 the central figure of this brilliant historical scene. I saluted 
 and waited in innocent curiosity his orders, unsuspecting 
 the distinguished honors the First Brigade was to receive at 
 his hands. 
 
 " I have sent for you, General Ripley," he said, " to inform 
 you that I have selected you to take command of this city 
 and your brigade as its garrison. I have no orders further 
 to communicate ; except to say that I wish this conflagration 
 stopp4, and this city saved if it is in the bounds of human 
 possibility, and you have carte blanche to do it in your own 
 way." 
 
 I do not remember exchanging any suggestions with 
 him then, except to say that I would like the other troops 
 withdrawn wholly from the city. He thereupon gave orders 
 to the division commanders to march their troops through 
 the city and go into camp along the interior line of works 
 and give no passes. 
 
 This was done, yet I had more or less trouble from the 
 disorder of the colored troops, many of whom stole in and 
 went directly to their old masters and mistresses to enjoy 
 their day of triumph over them. It was reported to me 
 that one went to a residence not far from my headquarters 
 down Main Street, where his wife was still a servant. They 
 made the lady and her daughters bring out their finest cloth- 
 ing and. ornaments, play ladies' maids to the black women, 
 and finally prepare dinner for their former servants. While 
 it was going on word was sent to a white safeguard near 
 there, who appeared on the scene to arrest the man. He 
 turned savagely on the guard, who in turn was obliged in 
 self-defence to use his bayonet and run him through. In 
 the hurry and confusion of those intensely absorbing days
 
 I 
 
 s
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND II 
 
 I never had time to learn for myself if this story was 
 true. 
 
 Leaving General Weitzel I returned to the brigade, hur- 
 riedly selected the city hall for my headquarters, despatched 
 regimental commanders under the guidance of the city offi- 
 cials to select in various sections of the city proper points at 
 which to establish their regiments for effective work. Other 
 officers were sent with members of the fire department to 
 get at the engines and hose carts, but found to our utter 
 astonishment and dismay that, to make the destruction of 
 their capital more certain and complete, the Confederate 
 rear guard had cut the hose and disabled the engines. 
 
 The alleged destruction of Columbia by the troops of 
 Sherman's army, if it were true, which it is not, cannot be 
 compared with the ruthless barbarity of the rebel troops. 
 
 At Richmond they attempted the destruction of their 
 capital, filled as it was to overflowing with thousands of 
 defenceless women and children, fugitives from all over the 
 South, and with thousands more of the sick and wounded 
 of their own army, when its destruction could not have the 
 effect to sustain the sinking Confederacy for a moment. It 
 was a barbarism unparalleled in history. The burning of 
 Moscow by the stern Rostopschin was terrible but effective 
 warfare, yet he first drove the unfortunate inhabitants out, 
 then piled the city full of combustibles, destroyed the pumps, 
 and turned loose thousands of abandoned wretches, crim- 
 inals of the worst class, in an empty city. He destroyed 
 it, but in so doing snatched in an instant the fruits of his 
 great campaign from Napoleon, inflicting on him the greatest 
 defeat he had ever sustained, from which he never recovered 
 and which was the beginning of his downward plunge to 
 Elba. 
 
 There is nothing in the pages of history more wantonly 
 brutal and barbarous than the desperate attempt of Ewell 
 to burn the city of Richmond over the heads of its defence- 
 less and starving women and children, its sick and wounded, 
 without warning them of the fate which was hanging over 
 them.
 
 12 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 The Confederacy, like a wounded wolf, died gnawing at 
 its own body in insensate passion and fury. 
 
 The regiments quickly stripped for the fight of their 
 lives, unique and terrible, a contest with a gigantic fire ex- 
 tending already over a large part of the city, and roaring 
 like a great battle with the explosions of the vast store of 
 war materials, and threatening the destruction of the entire 
 city with its helpless inhabitants. 
 
 None of the usual fire-fighting machinery was at hand. 
 The retreating army of Ewell had cut the hose; the Rich- 
 mond firemen were unequal to the task, so the First Brigade 
 had to depend upon blowing up and pulling down buildings 
 in the pathway of the flames to check them. Happily the 
 wind blew down the river and carried the flames and cinders 
 in a straight line through the business and away from the 
 residence section. 
 
 All day long and into the night the brave men of the 
 Northern army battled with desperate courage and splendid 
 self-sacrifice to save the apparently doomed capital of those 
 mistaken men who were yet fighting under Lee with dogged 
 obstinacy to destroy this great union of States. Had it 
 been for their own homes and firesides their fight could not 
 have been more heroic. When midnight came the fires 
 were checked and under control and the city saved. The 
 horrible roar of the flames still went up, with the crash- 
 ing of falling walls and explosions of ordnance stores; 
 but the fire was headed off and the exhausted troops 
 rested. 
 
 As quickly as possible one of the staff was sent to Libby 
 prison and to Castle Thunder to liberate any prisoners there, 
 and to organize a guard for the care of the thousands of Con- 
 federate stragglers and pillagers who were being arrested 
 by the provost guards in clearing the streets. They hauled 
 down and brought to me the garrison flag that had floated 
 over the Libby prison and witnessed the terrible sufferings 
 of the thousands of Union officers packed inside its walls. 
 They brought away also the official record of the prison, 
 with its tell-tale confession of inhumanity contained in the
 
 jPtr ~l< Ss r ( 6,tl,st<,, f , /I 
 / . / , 
 
 <t,e if St^L fie rtat fi-j ' *'f 
 
 "/ Sf'',,, ~'fri*<', *r &%aK.*y 
 
 / ',. /,,ss s?i.Sj-<f/ 4t<^ 
 
 Gi^ate. ''**&,*;' ,r ^ **: 
 
 ' t*n* r ^_jt> <jS^t,*A^ 
 
 
 
 Facsimile of the letter of Judge Ould, Rebel Commissioner of 
 Exchange, to General Winder, referred to on opposite page, and 
 the key to the Libby Prison, both now in the possession of General 
 Edward H. Ripley.
 
 CAPTURE AND 1 OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 13 
 
 celebrated letter of Judge Ould, commissioner of exchange, to 
 General Winder, commandant of the Libby and Castle Thun- 
 der, in which Ould shamelessly boasts of an arrangement 
 he had made by which he gets rid of a "lot of broken-down 
 and worthless Yankees in exchange for Confederates in splen- 
 did condition." They also brought the key to the main 
 entrance to the Libby, which turned on every Union officer 
 ever incarcerated there. This key, comrades, which I hold 
 in my hand, is the key of that American Bastile, and to you, 
 General Pierson, and to you other companions who in your 
 golden youth were thrust within that gloomy portal, and 
 with the rattle of this fatal key left your young hopes be- 
 hind, I extend in the name of this Commandery our hearty 
 congratulations that, having endured such sufferings, you 
 have survived to encounter this key again after more than 
 forty years amid such genial surroundings. Later the guard 
 of the executive mansion of Jefferson Davis brought me an 
 infernal machine in the shape of an imitation lump of coal, 
 which he took from a writing desk used by President Davis. 
 This was used to throw in the coal bunkers of our war-ships 
 to blow them up. I have also the great seal of the Confed- 
 eracy, together with a monograph of its history ; also the orig- 
 inal designs submitted at Montgomery for the new flag of 
 the Confederacy. All these are in my possession and to be 
 seen in my collection of Civil War relics in the Soldiers' 
 Memorial Hall at Rutland. 
 
 Among the many trophies of the war I did not succeed 
 in keeping were the flags of the celebrated Richmond Howit- 
 zers, which had been presented to them by the Richmond 
 ladies. They seemed too heavy, with their rich embroidery 
 of gold bullion, to flutter even in a gale of wind. I have 
 never seen any flags so extravagant in costliness. They 
 must have been the product of the first wild enthusiasm of 
 secession, before the grinding poverty had settled down 
 upon the people and it took thousands of Confederate paper 
 money to buy a pair of boots. One day General Weitzel 
 sent Lieutenant Graves of his staff to say he had heard of 
 them, and would be pleased if I would let them be brought
 
 14 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 up for his inspection. Graves promised to return them, but 
 I never saw them again. 
 
 It was with supreme satisfaction that the cavalry swept 
 the streets of the Confederates and clapped them into Libby, 
 giving them a taste of their own prisons. The next morning 
 when I rode past it was so full they boiled up on the roof. 
 
 After opening headquarters in the city hall, my first 
 official action was to prepare, print, and have placarded over 
 the city an order commanding all good citizens to aid the 
 military authorities in restoring order by retiring to their 
 homes, keeping closely within doors, and threatening with 
 arrest any citizens who should be found on the streets after 
 nightfall. I ordered the daily papers to be taken posses- 
 sion of and prepared for issue under loyal management, and 
 directed patrols upon every street to arrest the drunken 
 mob of pillagers who were running riot, and to bring the pil- 
 laged property to the city hall, where it was taken by an 
 officer, receipted for, and piled away in various back rooms 
 of the building, until an immense and curious mass of plun- 
 der was accumulated. My office was at once besieged and 
 taken possession of by crowds of terror-stricken ladies whose 
 minds had been filled with the wicked and outrageous cal- 
 umnies heaped upon the Northern troops by the Richmond 
 papers, and who expected that the regime initiated by their 
 own people was but the prelude to the reign of terror which 
 the "Yankee monsters" would inaugurate when settled in 
 the possession of the city. 
 
 TERROR OF THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN 
 
 Old ladies came and threw themselves on my neck in 
 paroxysms of terror and implored me to save them; others 
 clung to my arms until they had extracted a personal pledge 
 from me; others threw themselves on the floor and grasped 
 my knees until I would promise them a soldier safeguard 
 in their own house. One lady, deeply veiled, came in great 
 excitement, and leaning on my shoulder whispered in my 
 ear, " I am the daughter of General Keim of Pennsylvania,
 
 . _.___ I 
 
 Infernal machine, in imitation of a lump of coal, taken 
 
 from the writing-desk of Jefferson Davis, 
 
 April 3, 1865
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 15 
 
 and I appeal to you as a Northern woman for protection." 
 I replied warmly, " As a Northern woman you ought to know 
 that you do not need to make such an appeal." I gave her 
 at random the first private soldier I could put my hands on 
 as a safeguard, and sent him home with her to be respon- 
 sible for the safety of the block in which she lived. Of her 
 experience with this average Northern soldier I will later on 
 tell the story. 
 
 General Sterns of Longstreet's corps left a letter with 
 his wife confiding her and her children to the care of the 
 officer commanding the victorious Northern troops, saying 
 he intrusted them to him as soldier to soldier. 
 
 Another lady, dressed in the deepest weeds, shivering 
 like an aspen leaf with terror, her face concealed with a 
 crape veil, whispered in my ear, " I am the widow of Gen- 
 eral Gracie [a Confederate general killed shortly before at 
 Petersburg], and I appeal to you as a soldier's widow to a 
 brother soldier to protect me and my fatherless children." 
 She then told me that she had a large family of young chil- 
 dren, that they had had nothing to eat for several weeks but 
 bean soup, and that to cook it they had to burn up their 
 bannister rail and other portions of their house. I turned 
 her over to the care of my old college tutor Millard, and his 
 Christian Commission, whom I had installed in the room 
 across the hall from my office in the city hall, and who took 
 care for me of the crowds of ladies who applied for protec- 
 tion and aid; rendering me most effective and timely ser- 
 vice for several days by writing safeguards, which they 
 brought to me to sign, the violation of which by a soldier 
 was death. I afterward sent an aide to visit Mrs. Gracie 
 and ascertain her most pressing necessities, and supplied her 
 with rations from my mess until I was able to get her trans- 
 portation to her friends in the North. 
 
 The staff officers assigned to the distribution and domi- 
 ciling of guards in the private residences sent soldiers home 
 with the ladies who had thronged headquarters, aiming to 
 place a soldier in the centre house of each two opposite 
 blocks, making him responsible for their safety. These
 
 l6 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 safeguards remained in these families from ten days to two 
 weeks, in most cases treated as guests rather than as guards. 
 They were men taken indiscriminately from regiments of 
 Wisconsin, Connecticut, New Hampshire, northern and 
 central New York, and from Brooklyn, and were therefore 
 a fair representation of the soldiers of Devens's division and 
 consequently of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps. I not only 
 never heard a complaint of any rudeness or roughness, but, 
 on the contrary, there was unstinted praise of their civil as 
 well as military qualities and bearing, so unexpected in 
 them by the Richmond ladies. 
 
 SOLDIERLY BEARING OF THE UNION MEN. 
 
 And here I may illustrate by relating the story of one, 
 as told me by both Mr. and Mrs. Wirt Robinson, the latter 
 of whom was the daughter of General Keim of Reading, Pa., 
 referred to earlier. I personally escorted Mrs. Robinson to 
 the hall and ordered the soldier standing at the head of the 
 line to sling his knapsack and go with the lady to her home 
 and be responsible for its safety and the houses of her neigh- 
 bors. He shouldered his rifle and fell in behind her as I 
 bade her good morning. There was no personal selection, 
 no especial and minute instructions as to his duties. Mr. 
 Robinson afterward told me that upon entering the house 
 the guard asked where he could deposit his knapsack and 
 his three days' cooked rations where they would be least in 
 the way, and where he could sit. He was given a seat in 
 the hall, where he remained for some little time, after which 
 he remarked to Mr. Robinson that he saw he had a library, 
 and if it would not inconvenience any one it would be a pleas- 
 ure to him to sit there and make use of the books, as it had 
 been a long time since he had had access to any. Mr. Rob- 
 inson politely told him, of course, the whole house was at his 
 disposal. Several hours later, hearing nothing from his once 
 dreaded Yankee invader, he stole quietly into the library 
 to find him deeply immersed in a very serious metaphysical 
 work; he engaged him in conversation, and to his profound
 
 
 Facsimile of the cover of the Order Book of the Libby Prison.
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 17 
 
 surprise found this bronzed, war-worn veteran, private sol- 
 dier of the North, was a college graduate and a professional 
 man. Although they had little to offer, and his haversack 
 was as substantial as their meagre Confederate larder, they 
 welcomed him as an honored guest, and gladly gave him 
 their best hospitality. The next day I sent them supplies 
 from my mess, and in return Mr. Robinson, who was an old- 
 fashioned bon-vivant, and had not the heart to literally obey 
 the stern edict of the city officials to destroy all wines and 
 liquors before the Yankee vandals arrived, having hidden 
 store of priceless old Serchal Madeiras, which had made the 
 East Indian voyage many times in Richmond merchant 
 vessels, brought it out and promptly sent me a carboy. 
 
 Referring again to the experience of the Richmond ladies 
 with the private soldiers of the North, Mrs. Gracie, the widow 
 of General Gracie, of the Confederate army, in a note to 
 me wrote: "Your guard is quite a literary character, and I 
 have been searching among all the old books I have to find 
 him something to read. We have had no use for novels 
 in the Confederacy: alas! our lives have proved novels of 
 themselves." 
 
 Again later: "Your guard has proved himself a treasure. 
 I could not do without him, he is so efficient. I cannot 
 thank you enough for giving him to me; indeed, between 
 him, the nice candles, and a respectable fire, which you so 
 kindly sent me, I am beginning to feel a little civilized." 
 I could give many more such acknowledgments of their 
 admiration of our soldiers. 
 
 On the other hand, from women of the commoner class, 
 we had experiences not unlike those of our troops at the 
 capture of New Orleans. While they were uncertain what 
 the Yankees were going to do with them, frightened, and 
 clamoring for our protection, they were polite enough in 
 their manners ; but as soon as they realized we were not ruf- 
 fians, but soldiers, respecting their sex, their behavior 
 quickly changed, and many of them assumed an insulting 
 manner toward our troops and our flag. 
 
 The 1 3th regiment of New Hampshire, composed of an
 
 1 8 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 unusually fine lot of New England men, was quartered in a 
 large market on lower Main Street, and particularly annoyed 
 by these very ungrateful and unwomanly demonstrations. 
 Its colors, state and national, were hung out from its porch, 
 guarded by a sentry, who paced his beat along the side- 
 walk ; and although they owed the safety of their persons, 
 their property, and the preservation of their city to the gen- 
 erous and gallant efforts of the men who fought under those 
 colors, many of these women would pull up their skirts, wrap 
 them carefully to one side, and with every expression of 
 loathing and hatred go out into the middle of the street to 
 avoid passing under them. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Smith, commanding the regi- 
 ment, a brave officer, who was seriously wounded in the 
 famous assault on Fort Harrison, under General Stannard, was 
 ordered to detail some officer tactful and firm to escort every 
 woman who attempted this back, and quietly, and with 
 more politeness than they were entitled to receive, make 
 them understand that we would tolerate no insults to our 
 uniform or colors, but that they must cease such demon- 
 strations or encounter severe measures. This soon had its 
 effect and we saw no more of it. 
 
 A NIGHT WITH THE FLAMES. 
 
 At about 2 o'clock in the morning I got sufficient respite 
 from the exertions of the day to get into the saddle and make 
 an inspection of my command. Accompanied by my staff, 
 I rode through the sleeping city from one end to the other. 
 Not a human being was encountered of all the destroying 
 mob who had filled it to overflowing in the morning. On 
 every alternate corner stood the motionless form of a sentry; 
 not a ray of light from a house gave hint of life within, ex- 
 cept at a corner grocery, where light was detected through 
 a crack in the shutters. The sharp rap of an aide's sabre 
 hilt on the door brought out a panic-stricken German gro- 
 cer, who had been too frightened to go to bed, and who was 
 sitting up with the few worldly goods he had left. For hours
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 19 
 
 we passed up and down the streets, which echoed with the 
 clatter of our horses' hoofs and the jingle of our sabres, 
 astonished at the discipline which had been established in 
 so few hours out of chaos. Returning we left the brigade 
 headquarters cavalry in the rear of the house, the men in 
 reliefs at their horses' heads, and our horses saddled and 
 bridled ready for any alarm. 
 
 It was near morning when we gave ourselves up to rest 
 in the house of Mrs. Allen, which we had selected for our 
 domestic headquarters, and enjoyed the delicious and novel 
 intoxication of rest on real beds under a roof after three long 
 years of campaigning. This was not altogether a realiza- 
 tion of our dream of domestic repose, however, as we dare 
 not undress or even pull off our boots or lay aside our arms. 
 
 There has been much written on the subject of Ewell's 
 responsibility for this terrible war measure, and I have this 
 autograph letter from his brother, Prof. Benj. S. Ewell, of 
 William and Mary College, dated Richmond, April, 1865- 
 It reads as follows : 
 
 SIR: In relation to General Ewell and the late disastrous 
 conflagration in this city, I ask to make the following state- 
 ment: After the fall of Savannah, Ga., the Confederate Congress 
 passed a law requiring officers in command to destroy all cotton, 
 tobacco, and other valuable products liable to capture. Some 
 weeks ago General Ewell received official notice of this law, and 
 with it an order to prepare for the destruction of the tobacco, 
 etc., stored in Richmond, that could not be carried away, the 
 destruction to be completed in the event of evacuation. He 
 immediately notified the parties concerned of the order, directing 
 all tobacco not removed to be deposited in some place or places 
 where it could be destroyed without danger to the city. The 
 details were intrusted to an officer of his command. For the 
 fire in no way is General Ewell responsible, as in the execution 
 of a military order in respect to which he had no discretion he 
 sought by every means in his power to provide against such a 
 catastrophe as followed. 
 
 Very respectfully your obedient servant, 
 
 BENJAMIN S. EWELL.
 
 20 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 My answer to this was simple enough. General Ewell 
 deliberately chose to instruct his officers to execute this 
 order though it endangered the lives of thousands of helpless 
 women and children and his sick and wounded comrades 
 of Lee's army, who crowded the city, rather than risk that 
 more or less cotton and tobacco should fall into the hands of 
 the hated Yankees when the value of it was not of any im- 
 portance to the North as a war measure. He invited a holo- 
 caust of his own friends to keep us out of a million or two 
 dollars' worth of cotton and tobacco. 
 
 Every officer in command must exercise at times his 
 own judgment as to the possibility or desirability of execut- 
 ing even very stringent orders. 
 
 VALUABLE RECORDS SAVED. 
 
 Among the acts of vandalism we were happily able to 
 arrest, before irreparable damage was done, was the sacking 
 of the Virginia State Library. An officer entering it found 
 the floor covered with the colonial and other records in 
 which it was so rich. They had been wantonly taken from 
 their cases and thrown around. A guard was at once posted 
 over it with imperative orders to let no person pass without 
 written permission from headquarters, and when, several 
 days later, I tried to enter it, it was with difficulty I could 
 persuade my own guard to let me pass. The floor was yet 
 covered with an interesting mass of time-worn papers. I 
 believe little real damage was done to these valuable archives. 
 
 The Confederate archives, such as were left in the hur- 
 ried retreat, were the most interesting and important spoils 
 of our capture, and the first things sought for and guarded, 
 together with the contents of the telegraph offices. These 
 I some days later, on the arrival of Chas. A. Dana, Assistant 
 Secretary of War, turned over to him. One half of the large 
 accumulation of copies of the Confederate telegraph dis- 
 patches were found, the other half have never been found. 
 They were said to have been carried off by a woman on the 
 day of our entry.
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 21 
 
 A report having come to me that Mrs. Robert E. Lee, who 
 had left the city hurriedly, was very ill and wished to return 
 to her home, I sent an ambulance to assist her; and after 
 Appomattox and General Lee's home-coming I arranged to 
 protect him as much as possible from the annoyance of the 
 curious public which had begun to throng from the North 
 to this famous stronghold of the Confederacy. 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S VISIT. 
 
 As fast as possible the Confederate prisoners were pa- 
 roled and urged to lay aside their gray uniforms, take to 
 citizen's dress, and aid in the maintenance of order, which 
 they very generally and in good spirit did. They were 
 mostly men who on the abandonment of their capital saw 
 that further fighting was useless and upon the retreat of 
 Ewell's corps quietly stayed behind. One of these came to 
 my quarters on the day of Mr. Lincoln's arrival on Admiral 
 Porter's flag-ship, Malvern, April 4th, and begged an 
 interview. The streets were crowded during the daytime 
 with excited throngs of negroes and whites, and we were 
 very uneasy at Mr. Lincoln's insistence upon visiting all 
 interesting points. We tried to make him consent to an 
 escort, but he would not allow it, and strolled through 
 the city like a private citizen, followed by crowds of 
 people, white and black. It was a very dangerous thing 
 to do, and we were obliged, unknown to him, to sur- 
 round him with a crowd of detectives in citizen's dress, 
 heavily armed. His reception by the emancipated negroes 
 was dramatic in the extreme. The War and Navy Depart- 
 ments were particularly anxious as to Mr. Lincoln's personal 
 safety, as the following dispatches illustrate : 
 
 MR. LINCOLN CAUTIONED. 
 
 I. 
 
 CITY POINT, April 3, 8:30 A.M. 
 EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War: 
 
 General Grant reports Petersburg evacuated and he is confi-
 
 22 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 dent Richmond is taken. He is pushing forward to cut off the 
 retreating army. I start to join him in a few minutes. 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 II. 
 
 WAR DEPARTMENT, April 3, 10:30 A.M. 
 To THE PRESIDENT: 
 
 I congratulate you and the nation on the glorious news in 
 your telegram just received. Allow me respectfully to ask you 
 to consider whether you ought to expose the nation to the 
 consequences of any disaster to yourself in the pursuit of a 
 treacherous and dangerous enemy like the rebel army. If it was 
 a question concerning yourself only I should not presume to say 
 a word. Commanding generals are in the line of their duty 
 in running such risks ; but is the political head of a nation in 
 the same condition? 
 
 EDWIN M. STANTON, 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 III. 
 
 CITY POINT, April 3, 5:00 P.M. 
 EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War : 
 
 Thanks for your caution, but I have already been to Peters- 
 burg, staid with General Grant an hour and a half, and returned 
 here. It is certain that Richmond is in our hands and I think 
 I will go there to-morrow. I will take care of myself. 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 " I will take care of myself." In those six words lay the 
 fate of the great Emancipator. 
 
 Admiral Porter in his book writes : 
 
 The President was received by General Weitzel, whose head- 
 quarters were in the house of the fugitive President of the 
 Confederacy. He took us to the state-house, the Libby prison, 
 and the public offices which had escaped the terrible conflagra- 
 tion of the day before. Late in the afternoon we were greatly 
 relieved to get the President safely back on board the Malvern. 
 On Wednesday and Thursday of the following week I was com- 
 pleting my final dispositions for my departure from City Point 
 for Washington, which was hastened by a feeling of nervous 
 apprehension for the President, the result of reflecting upon the 
 risks he ran.
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 23 
 
 The Confederate soldier alluded to above, who came to 
 my headquarters and begged to have an interview with me 
 on a very important subject, was a more than usually intel- 
 ligent and fine-appearing man in uniform, by the name of 
 Snyder. 
 
 He began by saying that he was an enlisted man in 
 Raine's torpedo bureau, an organization of the Confederate 
 secret service, which had among its duties such services as 
 the blowing up of our magazines and our river steamers, 
 raids on our rear like the St. Albans raid, firing of Northern 
 cities, like the simultaneous attempts on the Fifth Avenue 
 and many other New York hotels, the blowing up of the 
 powder boats at City Point, the distribution of small-pox 
 clothes, etc., etc., in fact all kinds of deviltry and irregular 
 warfare, calculated to create panic or discontent in the rear 
 of the Union armies. Their method was to plan an expedi- 
 tion and detail certain men who never knew what they 
 were to do until they arrived at a designated rendezvous and 
 received their orders. 
 
 A CONSPIRACY TO TAKE LINCOLN'S LIFE. 
 
 With the capture of Richmond and the abandonment of the 
 Petersburg lines, he believed the war was hopeless and not 
 another gun should be fired. Indeed his conscience told him 
 every life taken now was in a way a wanton murder, and every 
 right-minded man should strive to avert the shedding of another 
 drop of blood. He had seen with the greatest anxiety President 
 Lincoln expose himself to a fearful risk in walking so carelessly 
 unattended and unprotected through the streets filled with peo- 
 ple whose hearts in their defeat were bitter, and it would be but 
 human nature for some one to take the opportunity to revenge 
 the lost cause on the person of the man who represented the 
 triumphant cause of the Union. 
 
 He then said that what he was particularly anxious to 
 tell me was this : 
 
 He knew that a party had just been dispatched from Raine's 
 torpedo bureau on a secret mission, which vaguely he understood
 
 24 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 was aimed at the head of the Yankee government, and he wished 
 to put Mr. Lincoln on his guard and have impressed upon him that 
 just at this moment he believed him to be in great danger of 
 violence and he should take the greater care of himself. He 
 could not give names or facts, as the work of his department was 
 secret, and no man knew what his comrade was sent to do, but 
 of this he was convinced, that the President of the United States 
 was in great danger. 
 
 Upon expressing willingness to make a statement and 
 swear to it, I called in Captain Staniels, acting assistant 
 adjutant-general, who took down his statement under oath. 
 I then told him I should feel obliged to keep him in custody 
 until I could arrange an interview with President Lincoln. I 
 wrote the President a note and sent it at once aboard the Mal- 
 vern, asking an interview at his earliest leisure on an important 
 matter. It was then about 10 o'clock in the evening. In 
 reply he wrote me a personal note, saying he would see me 
 at 9 o'clock the next morning. I was promptly on hand, 
 taking Snyder and his statement with me. 
 
 A MEMORABLE STATEMENT. 
 
 Admiral Porter's boat was waiting at the dock. The 
 President received me most cordially in the Admiral's cabin, 
 and then sat down on the long cushioned seat running along 
 the side of the ship behind the dining table, I taking my seat 
 opposite him. Little Tad , who was then a small and very rest- 
 less boy, amused himself by running up and down the length 
 of the sofa behind his father and jumping over his back in 
 passing. As I progressed in the explanation of my errand, Mr. 
 Lincoln let his head droop upon his hands as his elbows 
 rested on the table, his hands supporting his chin and clasp- 
 ing either cheek in an expression of the most heart-breaking 
 weariness, his great, melancholy eyes filling the cabin with 
 the mournful light they emitted. I read the paper; I urged 
 upon him the reasonableness of the warning, the good faith 
 and apparent integrity of the man, and to make the impres- 
 sion deeper, if possible, I begged him to let me bring him in
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 25 
 
 and talk with him, but it was all to no purpose. Finally 
 he lifted his head, and, casting upon me that face above all 
 human faces that of a "man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief," he said: "No, General Ripley, it is impos- 
 sible for me to adopt and follow your suggestions. I deeply 
 appreciate the feeling which has led you to urge them 
 on me, but I must go on as I have begun in the course 
 marked out for me, for I cannot bring myself to believe that 
 any human being lives who would do me any harm." The 
 interview then ended. He was so worn, emaciated, and 
 pallid that he looked more like a disembodied spirit than 
 the successful leader of a great nation in its hour of supreme 
 triumph. I never saw him again; he left Richmond that 
 afternoon, and City Point for Washington in a few days. My 
 warning to him was on the morning of the 5th of April; on 
 the night of the i5th a short ten days after he lay in 
 his blood at Washington, a victim of the wolfish desire for 
 revenge against which Snyder so honestly and prophetically 
 warned him. I have so often thought of the web of fate I 
 held in my impotent hands that morning, and what would 
 have happened to the destinies of this great, new nation 
 which has sprung up out of the blood and agony of that 
 desperate conflict if I had been able to persuade the great 
 President to let his friends protect him until the first rage 
 of the enemy over defeat had expended itself and the 
 realization had come in time to them that he, and his great 
 and generous General Grant were the best and wisest friends 
 they had. Would the miseries and crimes of the reconstruc- 
 tion period have been escaped under his patient, loving 
 leadership, or would it have proved too great a task to bring 
 the sections together and weld them into a sound, healthy 
 body, and the great war President have lived to have been 
 robbed of the lofty prestige in which he died? 
 
 No man can answer that question, but I have never had 
 any doubt of his holding a higher place in the Pantheon of 
 immortals because I failed, nor any doubt of the lengthened 
 period of the healing of the wounds of the nation because 
 he yielded to his conviction that he was following a path
 
 26 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 marked out for him by a higher power. Still I would like 
 to feel that I had been able to persuade and save him from 
 his tragic fate. 
 
 By Wednesday much interest began to be felt in the open- 
 ing of the churches on Sunday, and the question asked, " How 
 will the ministers conduct service under the new order of 
 things?" I therefore sent an invitation to all these gentle- 
 men to meet me at my headquarters that afternoon to ex- 
 press their views. They all came, to the number of twenty 
 or more, representing every creed. It was not difficult to 
 come to an understanding with the pastors who had no es- 
 tablished form of prayer, but the rectors of the Episcopal 
 churches, Messrs. Minnigerode, Peterkin, and others, took 
 the ground that as their form of prayer, established by the 
 church of the South, required prayer for President Davis, 
 no power could change it except that which created it. The 
 controversy was warm and amusing to the onlooker, as I 
 sat in the middle of the parlor of Mrs. Allen's house, a mere 
 boy, with twenty or more reverend gentlemen laying down 
 the ecclesiastical law to me. I cut it short by saying to 
 Rev. Dr. Minnigerode, who did the most of the talking: " You 
 forget, sir, that Richmond is again a part of the United 
 States, and under martial law civil and ecclesiastical law is 
 superseded. The churches will all be open on Sunday, will, 
 no doubt, be thronged with an unusually large attendance, 
 and the services will be conducted with regard to loyalty to 
 the United States. Such of you as recognize this reasonable 
 necessity will not be interfered with, but I have an abun- 
 dant supply of clergymen to assign to such pulpits as may be 
 needed to conduct loyal services." They then retired, and 
 I crossed the hall to the opposite parlor, where the theat- 
 rical managers were assembled, to arrange for the opening 
 of the theatres. 
 
 CONTROVERSY WITH THE RICHMOND MINISTERS. 
 
 In the morning I received from Dr. Minnigerode a long 
 and warm protest against any interference by the state
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 27 
 
 with the church, vehemently denying my right to place 
 any minister in his pulpit. This paper is in the War Re- 
 cords, where it is published to complete the history of the 
 heated controversy between Secretary Stanton, Assistant 
 Secretary Dana, General Weitzel, and myself, on the subject 
 of the services to be held. 
 
 April pth Dana telegraphed Stanton: 
 
 The churches have all been well filled to-day. The ladies, 
 especially, have attended in great numbers. The regular clergy 
 have prayed, almost without exception. The sermons were 
 devout and not political. The city is perfectly quiet, and there 
 is more security for persons and property than has existed here 
 for many months. 
 
 This was Secretary Dana's tribute to the splendid work of 
 the First Brigade. 
 
 On April loth Dana telegraphed to Stanton: 
 
 Permission was given to open all churches yesterday on the 
 general condition that no disloyal sentiments should be uttered. 
 No especial authority was given to omit the prayer for the Presi- 
 dent, but it was distinctly understood that that prayer would 
 not be said in Episcopal churches. As I have already reported, 
 Weitzel is of the opinion that this prayer should be required of 
 all those denominations of whose service it forms a regular part, 
 but on the urgent advice of Shepley, military governor, and Brevet 
 Brigadier-General Ripley, he did not give a positive order enforc- 
 ing it. 
 
 This was a deliberate untruth. The reverse was the fact, 
 as will be seen by Dr. Minnigerode's protest to me. The 
 War Records contain long despatches on the subject, too 
 long to copy here. 
 
 Secretary Stanton approved my position, but Weitzel, 
 who had first revoked my order, when he found Stanton was 
 angry with him, deliberately threw the responsibility and 
 blame on me. Dana, detecting it, telegraphed Stanton, " I 
 report the fact, confessing that it shakes a good deal my 
 confidence in Weitzel."
 
 28 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 AT THEATRE. 
 
 My conference with the theatre managers was followed 
 by the following letter from R. D'Arcy Ogden of the New 
 Richmond theater: 
 
 GENERAL EDWARD H. RIPLEY, Commander U. S. Forces. 
 
 SIR: I have at last succeeded in subduing the somewhat 
 chaotic condition of my corps dramatiqite and I desire, with 
 your approval, on Monday, April loth, to give a "Grand Enter- 
 tainment," something I hope worthy of your and the other gen- 
 erals' appreciation. The company is somewhat augmented, and 
 on Monday I present Macbeth in which for scenic and musical ef- 
 fects I have been told I have succeeded as well as any of the New 
 York or European theatres. With your approval I desire to decor- 
 ate the boxes you and the other generals will do me the honor to 
 occupy with headquarters flags, etc., and arranging an overture 
 entirely national, and would like to know the precise moment, 
 as nearly as possible, you would enter the theatre. 
 
 The affair fully answered all D'Arcy Ogden's anticipa- 
 tions. Probably the New Richmond Theatre never saw so 
 brilliant a scene. Our brigade and division headquarters 
 supplied him with all the national colors he could use, and 
 the audience, mostly in uniform, was large, brilliant, and 
 enthusiastic. 
 
 LINCOLN'S DEATH. 
 
 On the 1 5th of April, order being completely restored, 
 General Patrick, Provost-Marshal General of the Army of 
 the Potomac, was assigned to the command of Richmond 
 and my brigade was moved out into the inner line of works 
 west of the city. 
 
 1 By the sad coincidence of last week's terrible tragedy 
 my mind is painfully swept back to that April morning 
 forty-one years ago when a gallant young captain came 
 to me from General Patrick to arrange the taking over of the 
 
 > r Capt. Philip Schuyler was killed in a railroad accident on the 
 Southern Railway Nov. 29, 1906, and his body consumed in the burning 
 wreck.
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 2 9 
 
 command until but yesterday a highly honored member of 
 this Commandery, a brave soldier, a model citizen, an ideal 
 American gentleman, who, whether fighting to preserve the 
 nation his famous ancestor and namesake fought so well to 
 establish, or in the everyday work of a useful citizenship, 
 always through a well-spent life living up to the highest 
 traditions of his honored name: Philip Schuyler, Captain 
 on the staff of the Provost-Marshal General of the Army 
 of the Potomac. 
 
 On Sunday, the i6th, I was in the saddle from early in 
 the morning until noon, riding from regiment to regiment, 
 following up the Sunday morning inspections. When these 
 were finished I rode into the city to pay my formal respects 
 to General Devens, our division commander, as was the cus- 
 tom on Sundays. He occupied the governor's mansion. 
 While here we were stunned and panic-stricken by our first 
 intelligence of the assassination of President Lincoln, and, 
 as first reported, of the whole Cabinet. It had been with- 
 held from the troops twenty-four hours. For the first few 
 hours I felt that we were, like the Roman legions, holding 
 the government in our hands; that in us, the armies of the 
 Potomac, the James, and the Tennessee, were the Country 
 and the Government, and that we, thank God, were yet 
 complete and in the full pride of our power able to control 
 the destiny of the Republic. I rode back in profound dejec- 
 tion, thinking of Snyder and my fateful interview with the 
 President so quickly stricken. 
 
 On Saturday, the i5th, I had written to my friends in the 
 north: 
 
 The war is over and we all feel as though we might be mus- 
 tered out at any moment. I myself feel my occupation gone; 
 do not expect to see an armed rebel or again hear a hostile shot 
 fired. Lee's army is crowding in here, but we feel no more their 
 presence than as though they were the Rutland Lightguard, and 
 now it is all that left of that once grand and glorious Army of 
 Northern Virginia. What a terrible fate has like a lightning 
 stroke fallen upon it. 
 
 Shortly after this I took the brigade across the James to
 
 30 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 
 
 the Broad Rock race-course, three miles south of Manchester, 
 where we went into tents again. 
 
 From here it began to be scattered. On the 2oth of May 
 I wrote: 
 
 Weitzel's colored corps sailed last evening for Texas 25,000 
 strong. We are breaking up and floating apart like a weakened 
 raft. I have but three of my regiments with me. The igth 
 Wisconsin is at Fredericksburg, the 8ist New York at Williams- 
 burg, and the gSih New York at Danville, but the brigade is not 
 destroyed and they report yet to me. 
 
 I feel very strongly toward this approaching short and charm- 
 ing month of June, that is to cap and make complete my three 
 years of war experience. Every day that passes and brings me 
 nearer to a peace footing and citizenship teaches me how strongly 
 more strongly than I ever dreamed I have become wedded to 
 this stirring, heroic life ; and yet it has become painfully monoto- 
 nous, and when, day before yesterday, upon the arrival of Gov- 
 ernor Pierrepoint, a salute was fired, and the roar of the first gun 
 broke the oppressive and stifling silence of the last two months, 
 regiment after regiment sprang to its feet and gave cheer after 
 cheer of gratified relief. 
 
 Those who argue that henceforth the 4th of July will be dull 
 and stupid are wrong. The guns of the 4th will stir the blood of 
 thousands of men who are pining for the excitement of their war 
 days, and it will thrill through them like wine to a faint and 
 thirsty man, or the blast of a bugle to a warhorse. 
 
 On the pth of June I wrote : 
 
 To-morrow we have our farewell corps review, after which the 
 gallant Twenty-fourth Army Corps will pass into history. 
 
 It will be a sad sight for all. I shall stay with my brigade 
 until the last. My days and nights under Southern skies, under 
 trees, under canvas, under ground, in trenches, on Southern 
 verandas, are rapidly drawing to a close, and as I leave mine 
 night after night, I heave many a sigh as I think that one more 
 has gone never to return. 
 
 Within a few days the gth Vermont regiment, which 
 had won distinction in general orders after hot competition 
 as the finest of the eighteen regiments of Devens's division, 
 left for Vermont to hang its banners in the capitol at Mont-
 
 CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND 31 
 
 pelier; lay aside its rifles, and sink away into our Green 
 Mountain valleys to disappear from the sight of man for- 
 ever, leaving but a dream of its heroic past. Life seemed 
 collapsed in the dull routine of country business, like the 
 explosion of a shell in the air, leaving but little smoke and 
 few fragments behind to tell of the glorious days that had 
 been.
 
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