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delay the departure until the last possible moment. Perhaps the fortunes of war had turned in the Confederacy’s favor that night. Perhaps Lee had confounded the enemy as he had done so many times before and reestablished defensive lines protecting Richmond. At 10:00 P.M. Davis and Breckinridge walked into the office of the Richmond and Danville Railroad and waited for a miracle—a telegram from Robert E. Lee retracting his counsel to evacuate Richmond. For an hour Davis held the loaded and waiting train in the hope of receiving good news from Lee.
    Nothing—no telegram ever came. The Army of Northern Virginia could not save the beleaguered city. It would be imprudent, even dangerous, to tarry any longer. The Yankees could arrive in just six or seven hours, and further delay might allow them to cut the railroad line below Richmond, blocking the only route for Davis’s escape train.
    Dejected, Davis and Breckinridge left the railroad office and the president boarded his car. Captain William Parker, a naval officer on special duty at the train depot that night, observed the scene: “While waiting at the depot I had an opportunity of seeing the President and his Cabinet as they went to the cars. Mr. Davis preserved his usual calm and dignified manner, and General Breckinridge…Who had determined to go out [of Richmond] on horseback, was as cool and gallant as ever—but the others…Had the air (as the French say) of wishing to be off. General Breckinridge stayed with me some time after the President’s train had gone, and I had occasion to admire his bearing under the circumstances.”
    This was not a private, luxurious sleeping car constructed for a head of state. The Confederate railroad system had never equaled the scale, resources, and power of the United States Military Railroad. Jefferson Davis took his seat in a common coach packed with the heads of the cabinet departments, key staff members, and other selected officials. The departure was without ceremony. No honor guard, no well-wishers, and no martial band playing “Dixie” bade the president’s train farewell. Jefferson Davis gave no speech from the station platform, or from the rear of the last car, as Abraham Lincoln had done on February 11, 1861, the morning he left Springfield, Illinois, for his journey to Washington to become president.
    Captain Parker watched the train gather steam and creep out of the station at a slow speed, no more than ten miles per hour. The train groaned down the track. Parker noticed that it was loaded: “Not only inside, but on top, on the platforms, on the engine,—everywhere, in fact, where standing room could be found; and those who could not get that ‘hung on by their eyelids.’” It was a humbling, even ignominious departure of the Confederate president from his capital city.
    Postmaster John Reagan, riding on that train, pitied those left behind in Richmond. The fleeing government had abandoned not only a place but its people. A number of citizens had asked for hisadvice: Should they remain in their homes and “submit to the invading army,” or should they flee? Reagan knew that most had no choice anyway and could not escape if they wanted to.
    Throughout the day and into the night, countless people had fled the doomed city by any means possible—on foot or horseback; in carriages, carts, or wagons. Some rushed to the depot, but there was only a single rail line left open, and the small number of locomotives and cars had been commandeered by the government to transport the president, the cabinet, various officials, the Confederate archives, and the funds of the Confederate treasury to safety. The postmaster general knew the truth: Circumstances had “left but small opportunity for the inhabitants to escape.”
    As Davis’s train rolled out of Richmond, most of the passengers were somber. There was nothing left to say. Mallory captured the mood around him. “Silence reigned over the fugitives. All knew how the