Lincoln in Richmond

With victory for the Union all but certain after the fall of Richmond on April 3, 1865, the following day Abraham Lincoln traveled by boat to the Confederate capital, accompanied by a party that included his young son Tad, Admiral David Dixon Porter, and a small contingent of marines. Within moments of disembarking, Lincoln was recognized by a liberated bondsman who shouted, “Bless the Lord, there is the great Messiah! Glory, Hallelujah!” As the president walked from the waterfront to the Virginia statehouse, thousands of the city’s newly freed men, women, and children rushed to see the man they greeted as their liberator. As one contemporary observed, “Probably no mortal ever received such a greeting of prayers and tears and blessing as that which was conferred upon Abraham Lincoln by [those] whom the war had emancipated.” This print was copied after an eyewitness drawing of the jubilation for Lincoln.