A few days after Charleston's surrender, a small Union naval squadron reached Georgetown, South Carolina. There, Ens. Allen K. Noyes "led a party ashore and took control, while a small party climbed to the city hall dome and ran up the Stars and Stripes." The formal surrender of the city was made by a document from the pen of intendant R. O. Bush and four of his wardens.
Once Grant and Lee had come to terms at Appomattox, the fall of the Confederate capital was inevitable. Jubilant regiments of men in blue pushed into the burning city after its evacuation by Jefferson Davis and his aides. Delight that Richmond had fallen was overwhelming among Federals, but Mayor Joseph Mayo and his colleagues found it difficult to hold their emotions in check. A few days later Washington ordered the arrest of all city officials who had not signed an oath of allegiance to the United States.
With soldiers of the army of occupation holding dress parades among the ashes of Richmond, Confederates held only a few scattered sites deep inside the Cotton Belt. Early in April, the village