Lincoln In Petersburg

In March 1865, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant invited President Abraham Lincoln to City Point for a respite from Washington as the 9½-month-long siege of Petersburg neared its end, and Lincoln arrived on March 24. They held meetings, reviewed the army, and toured fortifications. On the morning of April 3, 1865, after news reached City Point that Petersburg had fallen just hours before, Lincoln arranged to visit the city and meet Grant there. With a party that included his son Tad and Adm. David Porter, he arrived south of here at Hancock Station on the U.S. Military Railroad about 10 A.M. and rode north along the Jerusalem Plank Road, stopping at abandoned Confederate works on the Dimmock Line. At Fort Mahone, also called Fort Damnation, one of the strongest points in the lines, Lincoln climbed the parapet and saw the aftermath of the Union IX Corps assault of the previous day, with many bloated Union and Confederate dead still lying about, including members of Gen. Charles H.T. Collis’s 114th Pennsylvania Regiment whom he had seen at City Point earlier in the week. Witnesses saw tears on Lincoln’s cheeks, and his bodyguard William Crook said his face settled into sadness at the war’s enormous human cost, though his expression brightened when he entered Petersburg to the cheers of Union soldiers and rode to the Thomas Wallace House to see Grant. Lincoln and Grant held their last meeting in Petersburg that day, the same day Federals occupied Richmond and Petersburg. Lincoln visited Richmond the next day and returned to Washington on April 9 as Grant accepted the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House.

Petersburg, Virginia · United States