Numerous smaller taverns and restaurants passed into obscurity, and only veiled references to them remain. Many perished in the flames of the evacuation fire. One such almost-forgotten place was Old Tom Griffin’s Restaurant, where the recently wounded Joseph E. Johnston offered a polite toast to his successor, Robert E. Lee, and magnanimously placed the confidence of the nation in him.

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For those seeking cultured entertainment, there was the Richmond Theater (1863, at 7th and Broad), which housed several ornate galleries and an orchestra. On one occasion, General J. E. B. Stuart was forced to send armed patrols to the theater to retrieve some of his men who had “accidentally” left camp and found themselves there. Stuart’s patrol aroused the ire of the city provost marshal, who felt his territory had been infringed upon, but Stuart responded in typically flamboyant fashion by sending more armed patrols into the city.

The provost marshal, Brig. Gen. John H. Winder, was not popular among the citizens, and his company was always vigorously avoided. Nor was a trip to his headquarters (at 10th and Broad) a pleasant prospect, as the odor from the uniforms and clothes taken off of dead soldiers had a tendency to drift upward from the basement, where thousands of uniforms were stored, to create a positively putrid environment in the already filthy office.

Another important social gathering place was the Confederate White House (1818, at 12th and Clay), to which Jefferson Davis and his family moved on August 1, 1861. “Levees,” a regular Washington tradition where anyone could pay an unannounced call on the first family, were held every fortnight at the Davises.

The Governor’s Mansion (1814, on Capitol Square) was also the location of many social and official activities during the war, but is perhaps best remembered for the night it held the mortal remains of Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson as he passed through Richmond for the last time. The mansion was not officially opened to the public, but Constance Cary, a prominent young Richmond girl, and a handful of other women did manage to gain entrance and catch a final glimpse of the fallen hero. Cary described the unearthly scene this way: “Two sentries paced to and fro in the moonlight streaming through the windows. A lamp burned dimly at the end of the hall, but we saw distinctly the regular white outline of the quiet face in its dreamless slumber.”

There were a number of places that citizens of good standing attempted to avoid in wartime Richmond. Even in the capital city of a cause that embraced and defended slavery, slave auctions were not popular places to frequent. They were located in an older, run-down neighborhood to begin with, and were usually held in dirty, ill-repaired structures that earned the gloomy scorn of Charles Dickens during his prewar visit to the city. No one of social standing–including most Confederate officers–had any reason or desire to travel through such an area of town.

The prisons for Union soldiers were also avoided, authorities having generally placed them out of the way to begin with. The most famous was Libby Prison (1845), a converted warehouse commandeered by the Confederate government in 1862. Although conditions in Libby Prison were better than in many other prisons, they were no better than the conditions faced by most Confederate troops, which were substandard by any measure the last half of the war. In 1864, roughly 100 Union prisoners dug their way out and attempted to escape with the aid of a local pro-Northern citizen, Elizabeth Van Lew.

John Van Lew was a prosperous Richmond merchant and owned what was perhaps the most impressive home in wartime Richmond, located on Grace Street and occupying a full city block. The activities of his abolitionist daughter, however, were destined to bring the wrath of the local population down upon the family name. At first, Elizabeth Van Lew was regarded as merely an eccentric, since the South was not devoid of abolitionists, though they were a small minority. Local citizens even laughed when it was reported that she was preparing a room for Union General George McClellan during the Peninsula campaign. While she cultivated her reputation for eccentricity, she engaged in activities (like harboring escaped prisoners) that could only be deemed treasonous to the Confederate cause. Her importance as an enemy spy was highlighted by the fact that General Grant sent an armed patrol to see after her safety upon entering the city in 1864. The citizens of Richmond–justly or not–were finally able to extract a measure of revenge in 1911 when Van Lew passed away, an ostracized, lonely old woman. The city permitted the historic Grace Street home to be razed to make way for a public shelter.

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