The Beleaguered City: Richmond, 1861-1865, First Edition

On July 5th, 1858 it would have taken a bold and keen-sighted prophet to predict that four years from that day the capital of Virginia would have become the capital of a confederacy whose purpose was the disruption of the United States, and not only the capital but the citadel and the outward bastion of that confederacy.

But a salute of a hundred guns boomed out from Capitol Square as the blue flag of Virginia rose slowly on the staff above the columned portico.