After the fall of Petersburg, Confederate forces considered their capitol, Richmond, indefensible. They evacuated, and set fire to and its military and tobacco storehouses during their retreat the night of April 2, which blaze spread to surrounding residential and commercial buildings. The city's mayor, Joseph Mayo traveled out along the Osborn Turnpike to Tree Hill Farm to find a Union commander to whom to surrender the city that night, and ask for help quelling the blaze. He found Majors Atherton H. Stevens Jr. and Eugene E. Graves who took his note to Major General Weitzel, who rode in to Richmond's city hall and accepted the formal surrender document at 8:15 that morning. Thus Weitzel took possession of Richmond, on April 3, 1865, and his Union forces extinguished the fires.