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that all stores which could not be removed should be destroyed. It is probable that the fires lighted in pursuance of this order spread to shops and houses and it is certain that in the early morning of April 3 a mob of both colors and both sexes set fire to buildings and “began to plunder the city.” Ewell said in his report that by daylight the riot was subdued and Jones wrote that at seven o’clock in the morning men went to the liquor shops in execution of an order of the city government and commanded that the spirits be poured into the streets. The gutters ran with liquor from which pitchers and buckets were filled by black and white women and boys. By seven o’clock also the evacuation of Richmond by the Confederates was completed. 16 The Union troops passed cautiously the first line of the Confederate works but as they met with no opposition, they went by the next lines at a double quick, and when the spires of the city came into view, they unfurled a national banner, and their bands striking up “Rally Round the Flag,” they sent up cheer on cheer as they marched in triumph through the streets. But they found confusion, an extensive conflagration and a reign of pillage and disorder. Their commander, Weitzel, received the surrender of Richmond at the city hall at quarter past eight, and, by two o’clock in the afternoon, they had quelled the tumult and put out the fires but not before a considerable portion of the city had been destroyed. 17 The Union soldiers were received by the white people gratefully and by the negroes with joy. Full of meaning was the visit of President Lincoln to Richmond, which was made from City Point next day in an unostentatious and careless manner. Proper arrangements had been made for his conveyance and escort but, owing to two accidents,

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