Lincoln’s March

Abraham Lincoln’s dramatic visit to the defeated Confederate capital in 1865, and how it has been remembered and reinterpreted since

“I want to see Richmond.” In April 1865, after four long years of civil war, the Confederate capital—less than one hundred miles from Washington, DC—finally fell to Union forces. Abraham Lincoln quickly declared his intention to go there, to stand in the epicenter of the rebellion, amid the still-smoldering ruins, and to greet its residents—white and Black—as the president of a soon-to-be reunited nation.

This book is the first dedicated to telling the story of his visit, but it goes well beyond narrating that remarkable day. Almost immediately, embellished accounts of Lincoln’s journey emerged, and the truth quickly fell victim to the needs of competing political agendas. Tom Shoop shows how ultimately Lincoln’s remarkable visit to a defeated Richmond would feed both the Lost Cause narrative and the mythology that Lincoln was uniquely capable of bringing North and South back together. Even as the story has faded from national memory, Lincoln’s March explains why it continues to resurface among those still arguing over the causes, consequences, and ongoing effects of the Civil War.