Lincoln In Petersburg

Tears at Fort Mahone

On the morning of April 3, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln awoke at City Point to the news that Petersburg had fallen just hours before. He immediately arranged to visit the city and meet with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant that morning. Lincoln and his party, including his son Tad and Adm. David Porter, arrived south of here at Hancock Station on the U.S. Military Railroad at about 10 A.M.

Riding on horseback north along the Jerusalem Plank Road (present-day Crater Road), the group stopped at the abandoned Confederate fortifications along the Dimmock Line. Here Lincoln climbed the parapet of Fort Mahone, also called Fort Damnation (on Walnut Hill Elementary School site), one of the strongest points in the lines. The Union IX Corps assault had taken place here the previous day. Many bloated bodies, both Union and Confederate, still lay sprawled about. Among them were members of Union Gen. Charles H.T. Collis’s colorful 114th Pennsylvania Regiment (Zouaves), whom Lincoln had seen on guard duty at City Point earlier in the week. A cavalryman in the escort saw tears streaming down Lincoln’s cheeks. His bodyguard, William Crook, noticed that Lincoln’s face had “settled into its old lines of sadness” over the war’s enormous cost in human lives and suffering. His expression soon brightened, however, when he entered the city to the cheers of Union soldiers and rode to the Thomas Wallace House to see Grant.

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In March 1865, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant invited President Abraham Lincoln to visit him at City Point for a respite from the capital as the 9½-month-Iong siege of Petersburg neared its end. Lincoln joined him on March 24. They held meetings, reviewed the army, and toured fortifications. On April 3, the day the Federals occupied Richmond and Petersburg, Lincoln and Grant held their last meeting in Petersburg. Lincoln visited Richmond the next day. He returned to Washington on April 9 as Grant accepted the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House.

Marker is at the intersection of Wakefield Street and Goodrich Avenue, on the right when traveling south on Wakefield Street.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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HMDB