The April Fire: Richmond's Evacuation, 1865

In the first days of April eighteen sixty-five, the Confederate government knew the end had come. General Ulysses Grant had broken through Confederate lines at Petersburg after a nine-month siege. The Confederate capital would fall within hours.

Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet left Richmond by train on the night of April second. Before leaving, Confederate forces were ordered to destroy military supplies to prevent them from falling to Union troops. Warehouses of tobacco and military stores were set alight.

The destruction was supposed to be controlled. It was not. The fire spread through the commercial district of Richmond with speed that surprised even those who set it.

Alcohol from broken barrels ran into the streets. The wind came up. By morning, much of downtown was burning, including the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad bridge, major commercial blocks along Main and Cary Streets, and a large swath of the city's business district.

The fire destroyed roughly eight hundred buildings. Union troops entered the city on April third. It was Black Union soldiers of the Twenty-Fifth Corps who first marched through the streets of the former Confederate capital.

Formerly enslaved people in Richmond's streets met them with a response that witnesses described as profound. Abraham Lincoln arrived on April fourth, walking through the burned district with a small escort, and was met by crowds of newly freed Black Richmonders who recognized what his presence meant. Tredegar Iron Works survived.

The Virginia State Capitol survived. Much of the residential city was untouched. But the commercial heart of Richmond lay in ash.

Reconstruction began almost immediately. The ruins were cleared and rebuilt within a few years. The fire that Confederate officers set to deny the Union a prize had instead cleared the ground for a new city on the same old plan.