Jefferson Davis’s Flight from Richmond

In the space of a few hours on the night of April 2, 1865, Richmond, the Confederate capital, was evacuated and burned, the government fled, slavery was finished in North America, Union forces entered the city and the outcome of the Civil War was effectively sealed. No official documents tell the story because the Confederate government was on the run. First there were newspaper accounts—mostly confused—then history books based on those accounts. But much of what we know about the fall of Richmond comes from “eyewitnesses” like Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory, whose tale became history. A great deal of what has been presented over the years by historians has been plagiarized, invented or misconstrued, and nearly all we have learned of Jefferson Davis’s flight from Richmond to Danville is wrong. This book closely examines all relevant source material—much of it newly discovered by the author—as well as the writers, diarists and eyewitnesses themselves, and constructs a minutely detailed new account that comes closer to what Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he said, “History is not history unless it is the truth.”

John Stewart is the author of non-fiction books on a variety of topics including African states and rulers, Antarctica, the British Empire, Moons of the solar system, Italian movies, Broadway musicals, the British circus, Lord Byron, Jefferson Davis, and Confederate spies. Winner of numerous reference book awards, he lives in West Jefferson, North Carolina.

John Stewart

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 316
Bibliographic Info: 36 photos, appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7853-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1640-7
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Planned Evacuation? 5
2. April 2 25
3. Lee 28
4. Church 57
5. The P.M. Dispatches 89
6. The Mad Rush 94
7. The Locomotive 107
8. The President’s Car 119
9. Departure Time 137
10. Brandy and Morphine 149
11. The Trip 154
12. The Confederate Treasure 192
13. Richmond Left Behind 199
14. Danville 206
15. Mallory 214
16. Stuart 227
Appendix: The Stuart Article 241
Bibliography 270
Index 295

“Stewart considers all available source material, including some never before evaluated material, and constructs the most detailed account of the important events of April 2, 1865 currently available”—ProtoView.