Abraham Lincoln at Point of Rocks

In March 1865, Abraham Lincoln left Washington to visit Lieutenant General Grant at City Point, where he spent two weeks touring the front and reviewing troops. On March 27, 1865, Lincoln, his wife Mary, and sons Robert and Tad visited Point of Rocks, where Doctor Moses Greeley Parker escorted the President on a tour of the hospital buildings. Parker recalled that Lincoln looked over the hospital buildings without entering them and appeared anxious, careworn, thoughtful, and wanting to be alone. Lincoln soon walked to Point of Rocks and sat beneath what was called the Pocahontas Oak, looking toward the line of breastworks and resting his head wearily on his hand, apparently contemplating what was to come. Within 18 days of his visit, Petersburg and Richmond fell, Lee surrendered at Appomattox, and Lincoln was assassinated. The bluff at Point of Rocks is believed to be the place where he looked toward Petersburg in the final days of the war. At the time of the Civil War, local legend held that a large oak on the left side of the bluff was the site where Pocahontas saved Captain John Smith, and wartime diaries mentioned both a sign asking that the oak be spared and the later cutting down of the tree, leaving only a stump.

Virginia · United States