The Boys of '61 / or, Four Years of Fighting, Personal Observations with the Army and Navy

by Charles Carleton Coffin

It was inspiriting to stand there, and watch the tide of victory rolling up the hill. With that Sunday's sun the hopes of the Rebels set, never to rise again. The C. S. A.,—the Confederate Slave Argosy,—freighted with blood and groans and tears, the death's-head and cross-bones at her masthead, hailed as a rightful belligerent, furnished with guns, ammunition, and all needful supplies by sympathetic England and France, was a shattered, helpless wreck.

Fire ambulance.

CHAPTER XXXI.
RICHMOND

April, 1865.

There was no longer the semblance of a Confederacy. Jeff Davis and Breckenridge were fugitives, without country or home. The Rebel army was flying. Richmond was in flames. The Rebellion had gone down in a night,—in darkness as it originated, and as it ought to die.

At three o'clock, Monday morning, an explosion took place which shook Richmond to its foundations, and made even the beds in the hospital at City Point heave as if by an earthquake. It was occasioned by the blowing up of the Rebel ironclads. Semmes was again without a command, for the Rebel navy was no more. If not swept from the ocean by Union cruisers, as the Alabama was by the Kearsarge, it was crushed by the ponderous blows of Grant and his victorious legions, as the result of his successes in the field. The shock roused the army from slumber. The hosts surrounding Petersburg needed no other reveille. The soldiers were on their feet in an instant, and General Wilcox (commanding the first division of the Ninth Corps) accepted it as a signal to advance. He was lying east of the city, his right resting on the Appomattox. His men sprang forward, but found only deserted works. The last body of Rebels—the lingerers who were remaining to plunder the people of Petersburg—took to their heels, and the division entered the town without opposition.

The entire army was in motion. Engineers hurried up with pontoons, strung them across the Appomattox, and Grant began the pursuit. I entered the town soon after sunrise, and found troops pouring in from all quarters, cheering, swinging their caps, helping themselves to tobacco, rushing upon the double-quick, eager to overtake Lee.

The colored population thronged the streets, swinging their old hats, bowing low, and shouting "Glory!" "Bless de Lord!" "I's been a praying for dis yere to happen, but didn't 'spect it quite so soon." "It is ges like a clap of thunder," said an old negro.