Chapter 74: Davis Flees Richmond and Lincoln Visits

Among those fleeing Richmond on April 2 is Jefferson Davis, accompanied by John Breckinridge, Judah Benjamin and some $500,000 in treasure gold. Two days later he is in Danville, still plotting to continue the war.

As he arrives there, Lincoln enters Richmond in a simple rowboat and is swarmed over by freedmen before making his way to visit Davis’s home, the White House of the Confederacy. He tells his officers there to go gentle with the citizenry, “to let ‘em up easy.”

By nightfall he is back on a barge for the return journey to Washington.