Richmond had fallen after almost four years of futile attacks by the Union Army. The war would continue because the main Confederate force, under Robert E. Lee, was retreating to the west and the safety of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It now became a race against time as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant tried to cut off Lee’s escape.

As the armies marched, there was still drama being played out in Richmond, and the New York Sun of April 8, 1865, reported, “The most interesting fact to be recorded to-day is…