The Capitals of the Confederacy by Hardy Michael C.;

Author:Hardy, Michael C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fighting to the north and east of Richmond lasted through mid-June. Every attempt by the Federals to get between Lee’s army and Richmond failed. Yet the battles produced some fifty-five thousand Confederate killed, wounded and missing. And there were very few replacements coming to swell the depleted Confederate ranks. A few new faces were seen. The Battle of New Market, Virginia, was fought on May 15, 1864, and to ensure Confederate victory, the cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were put in at the last moment. Following the battle, the cadets were in Richmond, parading on Capitol Square and listening to speeches from Davis and new Virginia governor William Smith. The cadets were quartered at Camp Lee, and on May 27, while drawn up on the capitol grounds, they were presented a new state flag and a resolution of thanks adopted by the Confederate Congress. With the burning of their campus in Lexington a few weeks after the Battle of New Market, Richmond became home to the cadets.91

One newspaper editor painted this picture of Richmond as the capital entered the most trying portion of the war:

WHAT RICHMOND HAS GIVEN UP to aid the Confederate Government in the prosecution of this war, has never been rightly estimated nor appreciated out side of Virginia. Her public buildings and institutions have been mainly monopolized by the general Government, of course with the consent of the authorities, for what would not the citizens of Richmond give if it were asked of them? This commenced with the transfer of the seat of Government from Montgomery to Richmond. First, the State Capitol was occupied by the Confederate Congress; the Mechanics’ Institute by the War Department; the City Postoffice by the Treasury Department. The Mechanics’ Institute has no longer an existence, and the Postoffice is removed to more contracted quarters under the Spotswood.—Since the army of “occupation” came our hotels have been pressed to supply other government accommodations; court martials sit in our churches; committees in our school houses; Yankee prisoners cram our warehouses; the wounded fill our dwellings; the refugees are quartered upon us by the thousands, and the original citizens are pushed into the smallest possible corner. We do not make these assertions in a spirit of fault finding; far from it. Richmond does not murmur, while the grand old mother of States and statesmen utters not a groan, no matter how much friend and foe trample upon and tear her fair bosom. She battles and suffers in hope, and looks for the day of her deliverance.92

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