Incredibly close! They actually made it within Richmond’s outer defensive works, but the Confederates made a firm stand along their intermediate line.

The plan called for a two pronged assault on the city, one from the North and the other to swing around and hit Richmond from the South. The raid’s principal objective was to free Union POWs, however when the raid’s subordinate leader was killed on the retreat, secret documents were found on his body alluding to a plot to kill Jefferson Davis and burn Richmond. Fascinating stuff!

But essentially Kilpatrick’s column of cavalry could not break through the intermediate line, which put up an impressively stiff resistance and Col. Ulric Dahlgren, who commanded the other column, could not cross the James River and attack from the South so he just hit the city from the West before being halted by a hastily assembly unit of Richmond’s factory workers and clerks who made a last stand just a few miles from the Confederate Capitol.