" . . . During 1864, some Government agencies in Richmond shipped records from the Capitol over the Richmond and Danville Railroad.
"On Apr. 2,1865, the Union Army penetrated the defenses of Petersburg, forcing a Confederate retreat from the southern approach to Richmond. On that day, President Davis directed all department heads to complete arrangements for leaving the Capital. Some records were then boxed for rail transportation; clerks piled up other records in the streets and set then afire and other records were simply abandoned ......"
[The Confederacy, A Guide to the Archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America, Henry Putney Beers, NA, pp. 414____, the Appendixes from which this is excerpted contains a lengthy discussion on the collection and archiving of Confederate records]
2. April 2 - "The banks will move tonight. Eight trains are provided for the transportation of the archives, etc."
[A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, Vol. II, p. 466]
3. April 2 - "Late in the afternoon the signs of evacuation became obvious to even the most incredulous. Wagons were driven furiously through the streets, to the different departments, where they received as freight, the archives of the government, and carried them to the Danville Depot, to be conveyed by railroad."
[Richmond During the War, Sallie B. Putnam, p. 363]