e borne into Richmond by
the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping to
be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city
was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, when
necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves into
their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that the
first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.

Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the
apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming
down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel
capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the
victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would
probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might be
taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for
the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a
great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most
graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events,
made a drawing which was purchased later by the New York Union League
Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured
folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowdin