Existing comment:
Confederate troops set fire to military, tobacco, and cotton warehouses before evacuating the city across Mayo's Bridge.
Fires started by the evacuating army soon spread through the city's commercial and industrial districts. That night, the powder magazine on 47th Street exploded, and in the morning, the ironclad ships of the James River Squadron were blown up to prevent their capture by Union forces.
On Monday, the Union army marched into Richmond.
Among the first soldiers to enter Richmond were the Twenty-eighth and Thirty-sixth Regiments of United States Colored Troops. Some Unionists, along with numerous black Richmonders, cheered the entering troops. One of the army's first tasks was to put out the fires with the aid of the citizens. |