The Fall of Richmond, Virginia, on the Night of April 2nd, 1865

This dramatic print recreates a key event in the final days of the American Civil War. The Confederacy’s capital of Richmond was a chief distribution center for weapons, supplies, and troops, and the city resisted repeated Union assaults before officially capitulating on April 3, 1865. Once Union General Ulysses S. Grant had taken nearby Petersburg, Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President, and his Cabinet evacuated Richmond by rail, instructing Confederate soldiers to set fire to warehouses and bridges as they left. The flames spread unchecked and devastated the city before being extinguished by Northern troops after the city surrendered. Currier & Ives’s lithograph shows Rebel soldiers and Richmond residents crossing the Mayo Bridge over the James River on the night of April 2nd, 1865, as storehouses burn and munitions explode in the background. The columned portico of the Confederate Capitol (right) is illuminated by the flames, and reflections on the river emphasize the fires’ visual impact. President Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad visited the smoldering city on April 4th. Several days later, after the Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer in Washington, D.C. The catastrophic scene here anticipates that dire chain of events.

Nathaniel Currier, who established a successful New York-based lithography firm in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. In 1857, Currier made accountant James Merritt Ives, his brother Charles's brother-in-law, a business partner; the firm was then renamed Currier & Ives. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring landscapes, rural and city views, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments.