Dabbs House and the Fall of the Confederate Capital - Richmond Virginia

I stopped at a Visitor's Center on the way to Virginia's capitol - Richmond.  Turns out the Visitor's Center in the same building that General Robert E. Lee stayed in for 62 days when Richmond - the Confederate Capital fell.

When the Confederate government moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia, the quiet, prosperous Virginia state capital was transformed into a noisy, crowded metropolis that, as Furgurson notes, was capital, military headquarters, transportation hub, industrial heart, prison, and hospital center of the Confederacy. It was also a target for the Union army. In fact, the effort for both the Union and the Confederate armies during much of the Civil War in the east focused on capturing or threatening the enemy's capital city. Since the Union capital--Washington D.C.--and the Confederate capital--Richmond--were located a mere 100 miles apart, much of the fighting raged between these two cities. Washington was never seriously threatened by Southern forces, but Richmond experienced more than its share of alarms and battles.

By early spring 1865 the citizens of Richmond had become used to the threat of capture by the Federal army whose soldiers the Richmond newspapers described with great imagination as the vilest of humanity. Richmond had endured some frighteningly close chances, and its inhabitants had grown accustomed to the sound of artillery fire from just ten miles outside the city. Their faith in Robert E. Lee was so complete that they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would never allow Richmond to be taken.

But the time had come for General Lee to consider just such a necessity. He had been able to hold back the Union forces for almost 10 months at Petersburg until his depleted forces were worn out and his supplies dwindled to nothing. Finally, he came to believe that he could best serve the Confederate cause by abandoning its capital. Furgurson records that Lee asked Lt. Gen. John B. Gordon for his opinion as to the Confederate Army's next steps. Gordon advised that the Confederacy should seek peace terms. If the terms were not acceptable, Gordon argued, the army should leave Richmond and Petersburg and retreat south to join Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army in the Carolinas where their combined forces could concentrate on defeating the Union army under General William T. Sherman.

From a "moral and political" viewpoint, Richmond's fall would be "a serious calamity," Lee...conceded, but once it happened, he could prolong the war for two more years on Virginia soil. Since the war began he had been forced to let the enemy make strategic plans for him, because he had to defend the capital, but "when Richmond falls I shall be able to make them for myself."
--Ashes of Glory

Lee had always felt constrained by the duty to defend the Confederate capital. But abandoning it, he knew he could move more freely. So when General Philip Sheridan's troops overran Confederate defenses at Five Forks on Saturday April 1, Lee made the decision to abandon the Petersburg defenses and, in doing so, to abandon Richmond.

As reported at http://www.civilwar.org/