The Fall of Richmond in the American Civil War: The Inside Story

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Ron Franklin

"The fall of Richmond, Va on the night of April 2d 1865"
“The fall of Richmond, Va on the night of April 2d 1865”
Source: Currier & Ives, 1865 (public domain)

Weitzel’s Order Announcing the Occupation of Richmond

Headquarters Detachment Army of the James,

Richmond, Va., April 3, 1865.

Major-General Godfrey Weitzel, commanding detachment of the Army of the James, announces the occupation of the city of Richmond by the Armies of the United States, under command of Lieutenant-General Grant. The people of Richmond are assured that we come to restore to them the blessings of peace, prosperity, and freedom, under the flag of the Union.

The Yankees Enter Richmond

When elements of General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union army entered Richmond early on the morning of Monday, April 3, 1865, it marked the effective end of the U.S. Civil War and of the Southern slave-holding states’ bid for separate nationhood. There was still hard fighting to be done, and many more lives would be lost before the last rebel soldier put down his rifle. But the loss of the Confederacy’s capital city was a fatal blow from which it was impossible for the Southern war effort to recover.

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Why Frederick Douglass Despised, Then Loved Abraham Lincoln

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Ron Franklin

"Frederick Douglass appealing to President Lincoln and his cabinet to enlist Negroes" mural by William Edouard Scott
“Frederick Douglass appealing to President Lincoln and his cabinet to enlist Negroes” mural by William Edouard Scott
Source: Library of Congress

The Friendship of Lincoln and Douglass

When Mary Todd Lincoln was gathering her belongings to leave the White House after the death of her husband, she decided to give his favorite walking cane to a man she knew the martyred president highly valued as a friend and partner in the cause of liberty. And she was sure the recipient returned that regard. She said to her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, “I know of no one that would appreciate this more than Frederick Douglass.”

Mrs. Lincoln was right about the friendship between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Although the two men met face to face only three times, Lincoln came to value Douglass’s perspective and the forthrightness with which he expressed it. Douglass, in his turn, would later say in his 1888 speech commemorating the 79th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth that having known Abraham Lincoln personally was “one of the grandest experiences” of his life.

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Why Abraham Lincoln Refused to Respect Jefferson Davis

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Ron Franklin

Abraham Lincoln as painted by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1887
Abraham Lincoln as painted by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1887
Source: Wikimedia

Was the Confederacy a New Nation?

History records that Jefferson Davis was the first president of the Confederate States of America. But there was one man who never conceded to Davis the dignity of that title. That man was Abraham Lincoln.

During the entire four years of the Civil War, the words “President Davis” never once escaped the lips of the President of the United States, and that fact was a fundamental element of the strategy that ensured there would never be a second president of the Confederacy.

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When Confederates Saluted Ulysses S. Grant Instead of Shooting Him

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Ron Franklin
By autumn of 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant was the most important soldier in the entire Union army. Yet when Confederate soldiers confronted him only yards away, they lined up and saluted him instead of shooting him.
By the autumn of 1863, Ulysses S. Grant had become the Union army’s most important general. During the Chattanooga campaign, Confederate soldiers would encounter him at close range—and salute him. Source: Public domain

In the movie How The West Was Won, there’s a scene set during the Civil War. A disillusioned Union private (played by George Peppard) and a similarly disillusioned Confederate soldier (Russ Tamblyn) befriend one another during the battle of Shiloh, and the two decide to desert from their respective armies.

But as the two hide together before running off, they find themselves in close proximity to Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.

Civil War Fact Was Stranger Than Fiction

Realizing that the Union commanding general is within his reach, the would-be rebel deserter raises his rifle to shoot Grant. But Peppard’s character stops him, killing him in the process, and saves Grant’s life.

For the screenwriters interested in highlighting the human drama of the story, I’m sure that scene made a lot of sense. It seems perfectly reasonable that a soldier who saw a chance to take out the opposing side’s commander would seize the opportunity if he could.

And yet, that’s not at all what happened in real life. Civil War soldiers just didn’t seem to think that way.

There were occasions during the war when Confederate soldiers did come face to face with General Grant. Yet, far from making aggressive moves toward him, they treated him with respect.

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How Ulysses S. Grant Overcame Depression and Addiction to Win the Civil War

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Ron Franklin
Ulysses S. Grant
General Ulysses S. Grant
1866 Painting by Constant Mayer via Wikimedia (Public Domain)

A Military Hero the Army Didn’t Want

At the start of the Civil War, Ulysses Grant had great credentials to be given an important military assignment. He had graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1843, then had served well in the Mexican–American War of 1846-48, winning citations for bravery under fire.

Now, with the Civil War having been initiated by the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the nation’s military was growing fast and was in desperate need of seasoned leadership. A West Point-educated officer with meritorious combat experience should have been in great demand for a high-level appointment.

That’s what happened with men like George B. McClellan and Henry W. Halleck, West Point graduates who had left the army for business careers but who were welcomed back with open arms when the war began and were soon appointed to the highest levels of army command.

But with Grant, things didn’t work out that way. In fact, when he began offering his services, it quickly became apparent that nobody wanted him.

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1863 Secret Message From Civil War Siege of Vicksburg Decoded in 2009

Posted on January 27, 2026 by Ron Franklin

The actual encoded message to General Pemberton
The actual encoded message to General Pemberton
Source: John Grimes Walker via Wikimedia (Public Domain)

A Secret Message to a Desperate General

In the summer of 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, Confederate General John C. Pemberton was under extreme pressure. His army of almost 30,000 men was besieged in Vicksburg, Mississippi by a massive Union force led by General Ulysses S. Grant. With all supplies of food, water, weapons, and ammunition cut off, the rebel army had reached the point where it could no longer hold out on its own. Without help from other Confederate forces from outside Vicksburg, Pemberton would soon have no choice but to surrender to the hated Yankees.

So, he pleaded with other Confederate generals for them to send the help he needed if his army was to survive. One of those generals sent Pemberton a response in the form of a secret message written in code and carried by a messenger in a small bottle. But Pemberton never received that message, and it remained unread until codebreakers finally decoded it in 2009.

Here is the story of that seemingly critical but never-delivered secret message, the code in which it was written, and how that code was finally deciphered 146 years later.

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Civil War Sharpshooters: How Col. Hiram Berdan Created an Elite Union Force

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Ron Franklin

Union Sharpshooter "California Joe" with his Sharps rifle, 1862
Union Sharpshooter “California Joe” with his Sharps rifle, 1862
Source: Photographer, George Houghton; courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society. Used by permission

The Riflemen

At the time of the Civil War, the U. S. military had no officially designated elite units such as the Navy Seals or Army Green Berets that are so celebrated today. But there was one branch of the service on both sides of the conflict that came close to that elite status: the Sharpshooters.

Sharpshooters were riflemen of extraordinary skill at the business of killing enemy troops. Man for man, they may have had a bigger impact on the course of the war than any other set of combatants. Yet today, when every facet of the Civil War experience is widely discussed, the sharpshooters, to a large extent, remain unknown.

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Civilians in the Siege of Vicksburg: Living in Caves, Eating Rats

Posted on January 20, 2026 by Ron Franklin

General Ulysses S. Grant
General Ulysses S. Grant. Source: Matthew Brady (Public Domain)

Vicksburg, Mississippi, situated on a high bluff that allowed the big guns placed there by the Confederates to interdict Union navigation of the Mississippi River, was considered by both North and South as a major key to victory in the Civil War. The Confederates had it, but U. S. Grant, at the head of a formidable Union army, wanted it and was coming to take it if he could.

Even though every attempt Grant had made so far to achieve that objective had failed, nobody really expected him to give up. So, civilians were warned that a siege was a distinct possibility, and they should either prepare themselves to withstand it or get out before the storm broke.

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Ulysses S. Grant vs Robert E. Lee on Slavery

Posted on January 17, 2026 by Ron Franklin

Grant and Lee at Appomattox
Grant and Lee at Appomattox. Source: Painting by Thomas Nast (Public Domain)

Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant Meet

On April 9, 1865, two men sat down together in the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s house at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. The older of the two, impeccably dressed in his finest uniform, was Robert E. Lee, general-in-chief of the Confederate States of America.

His opposite number, attired in the mud-spattered uniform of a private soldier with only the shoulder straps of a Lt. General to denote his rank, was Ulysses S. Grant, the supreme commander over all the armies of the United States. At that moment, the two were arguably the most important individuals on the entire North American continent.

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Robert E. Lee vs Ulysses S. Grant: Unexpected Views on Slavery

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Ron Franklin

General Robert E. Lee
General Robert E. Lee. Source: Lithograph by Jones Brothers Publishing Co., 1900, via Wikimedia (Public Domain)

Lee vs. Grant on Slavery

The year 1856 was significant for both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant in regard to their attitudes toward slavery.

Within a few years, these men would both be generals-in-chief on opposing sides in the nation’s Civil War, guiding multiple armies against one another in a desperate fight to either preserve or eradicate slavery.* Yet their personal views regarding the institution were in some ways the opposite of what would be expected.

Ulysses S. Grant Expressly Denied Being Anti-Slavery

In 1856, Ulysses S. Grant, probably the man most responsible (after Abraham Lincoln) for the destruction of American slavery, was no Abolitionist. In fact, he did not even see slavery as a moral issue.

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Posted in Civil War, Generals, Slavery | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment