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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
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.
See all Editorial Reviews
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.
See all Editorial Reviews
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3
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cite this book:
- The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac by Josephine F. Pacheco on page 289
- Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital by Nelson Lankford in