Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital [Hardcover]

Nelson Lankford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2002

Through the winter and early spring of 1865, while Union armies ranged at will across the South, Richmond still glittered with the hard defiance of a city long at war. But this last flicker of resolve only made the city's fall all the more devastating. On the night of April 2, faced with the inevitability of Grant's triumph, Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled, leaving Richmond to its fate-fire, capture, and the end of hope for a Southern nation. In this enthralling, meticulously researched book, Nelson Lankford draws on a treasure trove of diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspaper reports to create a narrative of novelistic immediacy. Here are unforgettable scenes of Abraham Lincoln's sailing up the James River to take possession of the Confederate White House and of Robert E. Lee's returning to Richmond to survey the still-smoldering ruins. Here too are vivid eyewitness accounts of the destruction of Richmond's commercial and governmental core, the hardships that its citizens, both black and white, suffered in the aftermath of the war, and the stubborn, sometimes violent resistance to reunification.

The first contemporary account of the last days of the Confederate capital, Richmond Burning is at once a superb work of history and a stunning piece of dramatic prose.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When conquering Union soldiers entered Richmond, Virginia, in the first days of April, 1865, they found a city afire, reduced to desperation, but still defiant. Virginia historian Nelson Lankford reconstructs the final hours of the Confederacy's heart in this vivid narrative, which draws on contemporary letters, diaries, and official reports that share both immediacy and a sense of awe at the terrible destruction. Just why the capital burned has long been a subject of speculation; by Lankford's account, much of the damage was due to the defenders' last-minute efforts to destroy war materiel, setting fires that soon spread. Lankford attends to other legends as well, including a reported call on Confederate general George Pickett's home by none other than Abraham Lincoln, while offering verifiable vignettes of such moments as Robert E. Lee's return to the capital and the celebrations of newly liberated slaves and Union prisoners. Lankford's narrative offers a view much different from what he calls "the warm sepia glow cast over our great national trauma by popular books and documentary films." It is a fine effort, and one that students of the Civil War should welcome. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Lankford continues his investigation of the Civil War's human dimensions with this narrative of Richmond's fall in 1865. As the war progressed it was increasingly clear that the fall of its capital meant the end of the Confederacy and by spring 1865 it was equally clear that fall was inevitable. Lankford uses a judicious combination of published and archival primary sources to demonstrate the increasing confusion that gripped the city as the government fled and the Union troops approached. He is equally successful presenting the tentative triumphalism with which the Northerners, many of them serving in segregated black regiments, entered the city. The fire that began with Confederate efforts to destroy military stores laid a large part of the city in ashes by the time of Abraham Lincoln's visit on April 4, an event that brought home to Richmond's citizens their new reality as an occupied city. The particular strength of Lankford's book is its demonstration of the rage with which most of the white population accepted that situation. Lankford is at pains to challenge myths of reconciliation between North and South, such as Lincoln's alleged visit to Confederate General George Pickett. Instead he offers comprehensive evidence that Richmond's citizens clung unrepentantly to their bitterness and sense of victimization, and denied the role of slavery in precipitating the war. The result for decades was their own enslavement to a past whose realities, as shown here, were a long way from the popular mythology of "gunpowder and magnolias."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First edition (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670031178
• ISBN-13: 978-0670031177
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,657,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside Story: The Final/post days of the Confederate City, November 9, 2002

By 

Daniel Hurley (Chesapeake, VA.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (Hardcover)

Nelson Lankford provides virtually an insiders view of Richmond before and after fall over the course of the last few months of the Confederacy including the month after. Not only are the feelings of the citizens recorded but those of the Confederate government and Robert E. Lee. It seems that in spite of the Confederacy eroding quickly across the national front with Sherman entering North Carolina, Jefferson Davis and the population of Richmond were in shock when the capitol actually fell. Robert E. Lee's miraculous victories of the past and some of his mixed communications continue to give the Confederate citizens of Richmond a forlorn hope that Lee would be victorious. Even after the evacuation and crushing loss of 1/10th of Richmond to fire including the loss of 90% of the business district, Richmond citizens still believed Lee was capable of a counter attack up to the point of the news of Appomattox. Exciting prologue to the epic moment of the final retreat of the Confederate military, the destruction of bridges and the ultimate controversial firing of the tobacco warehouses. The latter seemed so unnecessary and out of touch with reality. Ironically, the Tredegar Iron Works survive completely and they are a tour stop in Richmond today. Lankford discusses the effects on the population including those with Union sympathies and even those that were spies and underground supporters. Some of the Union supporters were imprisoned during the war and others such as Elizabeth Van Lew assisted in funneling escaped Union prisoners home including the body of Union Captain Eric Dahlgren who led a controversial raid on Richmond. Lankford covers the harsh economic effects the war had on the citizens of Richmond, the effects of union occupation, the generals responsible for order in Richmond (Weitzel, Ord and even Henry Halleck), Lincoln's fascinating trip up the dangerous James and arrival in Richmond, the attempt by former Confederate cabinet member John Campbell to reopen the Virginia legislature with Lincoln's blessing, the effect of the assassination on Union and Confederate relations and the new but strained relations between white southerners and the emancipated African Americans. Lankford touches the fascinating birth of the lost cause sentiments of the south and the issue of race relations at that time and it's portending for the future. Lankford's research is rich in discovery as he writes of some of the most famous stories that became legends but either were untruths or misinterpretations. LaSalle Pickett wrote of Lincoln coming to personally visit the home of George Pickett (totally false along with most of her recollections) and the perception that Robert E. Lee accepted black freedmen as equal by kneeling next to a black man in church. Was he showing the white public to accept the man as an equal or to show fellow white southerners to co-exist by ignoring his existence and carry on in spite of his presence? A very economically written book that is easy to read, integrating quotes and facts while moving the story along. Lots of information on Richmond that usually was not detailed after Appomattox covering the impact of its downfall on the citizens and the struggle of the Union to deal with the citizens fairly yet firmly.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rarity: A Well-Researched, Finely Written Civil War Book, October 4, 2002

By 

James L. Srodes "Author" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (Hardcover)

I make it a practice to avoid most Civil War narratives like the plague; those that are half-way literate usually are so larded with...glosses that my gag reflex kicks in.
Richmond Burning, on the other hand, should lift historian Nelson Lankrford into the top ranks of American narrative non-fiction writers. Lankford is such a great wordsmith that you can actually smell the clouds of smoke and despair rising over the Confederate capital in those final days. And unlike the top rank of popular history writers who always seem to be on public television, Lankford clearly does his own research and is in command of a trove of new information and insights.
Lankford's book is the one I'm giving for Christmas presents to friends and relatives, all descendants---like me---from resolute Union soldiers for whom Richmond Burning marked an event that definies us as a nation even today.
James Srodes
Washington, DC

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Watch Richmond Burn!, September 4, 2002

By 

John W. Mountcastle (Glen Allen, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (Hardcover)

Nelson Lankford knows that history is about storytelling. He does a superb job of bringing to life the men and women who lived through the tumult of Richmond's abandonment by the Confederate army and government and its fall to the Union army in the first few days of April, 1865. If you have not read anything about the demise of the Confederacy you must read this book. If you are an avid reader of books on the Civil War, you certainly must read this book. If you are not that interested in Civil War history, but are genuinely curious about Americans of the Victorian era, well, then, read this book. Mr. Lankford has presented us with a major contribution to our understanding of not only how the capital of the Confederacy crumbled, but why it happened the way it did.