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Moving the Confederate Capital

gathkinsons.net

Originally aired on September 22, 1995 - In part 56 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson tells us why the Confederate Capital had to be moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia.

#56 – Selecting a Capital

Arguments and unsettled points of fact do much to keep Civil War history alive. For the South in general, and for Virginia in particular, a so-called “major blunder” occurred in the first weeks of the war. Confederate authorities transferred the capital of the new nation from Montgomery, Alabama, deep inside the South, to Richmond, Virginia, barely 100 miles from the center of Northern territory. But was it a “blunder”?

A number of factors were involved in the decision. The atmosphere of Montgomery did not appeal to Confederate politicians and their wives. Montgomery was a small, shabby town of 9,000 inhabitants. Not too many years earlier, a team of oxen had drowned in one of the mud holes in the main street.

On the other hand, there was the enormous prestige of Virginia. Its presence was considered necessary for the success of the Confederate cause. After all, Virginia was the richest of the Southern states – with more white inhabitants, more slaves, and more military-age white males than in any other Southern state. Virginia’s tobacco fields and factories, orchards and armories, resources and production centers, made her vital as an asset of war.

In addition to the prestige, population, and location of the Old Dominion, it also had Richmond. The city was the third largest in the South, behind only New Orleans and Charleston. Richmond has an 1860 population close to 40,000 people. With its long history and stately public buildings, Richmond was truly imposing. More importantly, it was the closest thing to a manufacturing center as existed in the entire South.

Five railroads converged there; the city as an international seaport; the Richmond & Kanawha Canal (built thirty years before the better-known Eire Canal in New York) stretched westward 197 miles and transported more freight to Lynchburg, Lexington, and point in between than did the five railroads combined.

With thirteen iron foundries, Richmond was the solid leader in iron manufacturing south of the Potomac River. The Tredegar Iron Works, which manufactured over 1,100 cannon during the war, was the Southern nation’s main source for artillery. The Richmond Armory had the capacity of turning out 5,000 small arms per month. Nearby, the Confederate States Laboratory produced everything from signal rockets and artillery shells to cartridges and percussion caps.

In a South that was basically agricultural, the protection of these industries was absolutely imperative.

And Richmond could boast of more. It had eight flour mills, thirteen carriage manufacturers, four gunsmiths, two rolling mills, thirteen restaurants, seventy-two saloons and seventy-tow physicians. (Those last two figures are a strange combination, with intriguing possibilities for interpretation.)

Many historians have criticized the decision to move the Southern capital to Richmond because it placed the center of the Confederate government so close to Federal territory. These writers miss the point. The protection of Richmond’s industrial potential was essential. The city had to be defended to the last whether or not it was a capital. With Richmond so close to the area where the main scene of military action would take place, it did not have far to send supplies – a point that only added to the city’s value.

Transfer of the seat of government northward from Alabama also put Confederate authorities in closer contact with the possible sources of air in Europe. The “change of venue” demonstrated to Virginians that all of the South was serious about defending the Old Dominion. Lastly, shifting the capital to Richmond helped eliminate the widespread impression that secession was only a temper tantrum by Southern hotheads in the Deep South.

That one city along the James thus became the seat of four governments – those of Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia, and the Confederacy. A newspaper editor in 1861 summed up the importance of the capital with a succinct observation: “To lose Richmond is to lose Virginia, and to lose Virginia is to lose the key to the Southern Confederacy.”

Dr. James I. "Bud" Robertson, Jr., is a noted scholar on the American Civil War and Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech.