Two days after Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was killed in the failed raid on Richmond, his father, Rear-Admiral John A.B. Dahlgren, came to Washington to ask his friend President Abraham Lincoln for information about his son.
Lincoln was aware that Brigadier-General H. Judson Kilpatrick’s Federal command had fled to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler’s Federal army at Fort Monroe after the raid, but nobody at Washington knew of young Dahlgren’s death yet. Lincoln wrote Butler, “Admiral Dahlgren is here, and of course is very anxious about his son. Please send me at once all you know or can learn of his fate.”
Meanwhile, the South seethed with rage upon learning that papers on Dahlgren’s body called for liberated Federal prisoners of war to burn Richmond and kill top Confederate officials. General Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, sent the photographic copies of these documents to Major-General George G. Meade, commanding the Federal Army of the Potomac, and asked if he or his superiors had any prior knowledge of this plot.
Meade asked Kilpatrick to address these accusations, to which Kilpatrick replied, “All this is false,” and implied that Confederates had forged the documents and planted them on Dahlgren. Meade then responded to Lee that “neither the United States Government, myself, nor General Kilpatrick authorized, sanctioned, or approved the burning of the city of Richmond and the killing of Mr. Davis and Cabinet.” Meade also forwarded Kilpatrick’s statement on the matter, which asserted that nobody higher in rank than Dahlgren knew of the plot.
There was no evidence to disprove Meade’s claim, but Meade himself doubted Kilpatrick’s honesty on the matter. Meade wrote his wife about Kilpatrick’s claim that the documents were forged, “but I regret to say Kilpatrick’s reputation & collateral evidence in my possession rather go against this theory.” This was corroborated by a captain who had accompanied Dahlgren on the raid and reported to Provost Marshal Marsena Patrick that “he thinks the papers are correct that were found upon Dahlgren, as they correspond with what D. told him…” An agent with Meade’s Bureau of Military Information confirmed that the papers “found on Dahlgren’s body published in the Richmond papers (are an) Authentic report of contents.”
As news of the raid spread across the North, the northern press took a much different view than the South. They asserted that the Dahlgren papers were “blatant forgeries,” with the New York Times calling the raid a “complete success, resulting in the destruction of millions of dollars of public property.” The Times celebrated that the Federals had seen a “large number of dilapidated and deserted dwellings, the ruined churches with windows out and doors ajar, the abandoned fields and work shops, the neglected plantations.” The paper also approved of Dahlgren’s execution of a slave who had supposedly led him to an unusable river crossing because he “dared to trifle with the welfare of his country” and met “a fate he so richly deserved.” But the paper either did not know or willfully omitted Dahlgren’s controversial intentions.
Southerners branded Colonel Dahlgren a war criminal, and his body, which had been buried in a shallow grave in Richmond, was unearthed and put on display. A correspondent from the Richmond Examiner reported that the body was–
“Stripped, robbed of every valuable, the fingers cut off for the sake of the diamond rings that encircled them. When the body was found by those sent to take charge of it, it was lying in a field stark naked, with the exception of the stocking. Some humane persons had lifted the corpse from the pike and thrown it over into the field, to save it from the hogs. The artificial leg worn by Dahlgren (who lost his leg at Gettysburg) was removed… It is of most beautiful design and finish.
“Yesterday afternoon, the body was removed from the car that brought it to the York River railroad depot, and given to the spot of earth selected to receive it. Where that spot is no one but those concerned in its burial know or care to tell. It was a dog’s burial, without coffin, winding sheet or service. Friend and relative at the North need inquire no further; this is all they will know–he is buried a burial that befitted the mission upon which he came. He ‘swept through the city of Richmond’ on a pine bier, and ‘written his name’ on the scroll of infamy, instead of ‘on the hearts of his countrymen,’ never to be erased. He ‘asked the blessing of Almighty God’ and his mission of rapine, murder and blood, and the Almighty cursed him instead.”
Lieutenant-Colonel John Atkinson led the burial party, with instructions from President Davis not to reveal the burial site. Kilpatrick’s Federal troopers destroyed property, including a grain mill, in King and Queen County near Carlton’s Store, in retaliation for Dahlgren’s death.
The Confederate press called for retribution, with some newspapers even favoring the execution of all Federal prisoners of war. The Richmond Examiner asserted that “we are barbarians in the eyes of our enemies,” and that this was now “a war of extermination, of indiscriminate slaughter and plunder on the part of our enemies.” The Federals were–
“… turning loose some thousands of ruffian prisoners, brutalized to the deepest degree by acquaintance with every horror of war, who have been confined on an island for a year, far from all means of indulging their strong sensual appetites–inviting this pandemonium to work their will on the unarmed citizens, on the women, gentle and simple, of Richmond, and on all their property.”
Davis met with his cabinet on February 5 to discuss what the administration should do about it. Most members present favored executing the prisoners taken from Dahlgren’s command, but Davis was firmly opposed. According to Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin:
“A discussion ensued which became so heated as almost to create unfriendly feeling, by reason of the unshaken firmness of Mr. Davis, in maintaining that although these men merited a refusal to grant them quarter in the heat of battle, they had been received to mercy by their captors as prisoners of war, and such were sacred; and that we should be dishonored if harm should overtake them after their surrender, the acceptance of which constituted, in his judgment, a pledge that they should receive the treatment of prisoners of war.”
Secretary of War James A. Seddon asked General Lee for advice since he had greater experience in dealing with prisoners. Seddon wrote in part, “My own inclinations are toward the execution of at least a portion of those captured at the time Colonel Dahlgren was killed. The question of what is best to be done is a grave and important one, and I desire to have the benefit of your views and any suggestions you may make.” Lee responded:
“I cannot recommend the execution of the prisoners that have fallen into our hands. Assuming that the address and special orders of Colonel Dahlgren correctly state his designs and intentions, they were not executed, and I believe, even in a legal point of view, acts in addition to intentions are necessary to constitute a crime. These papers can only be considered as evidence of his intentions. It does not appear how far his men were cognizant of them, or that his course was sanctioned by his Government. It is only known that his plans were frustrated by a merciful Providence, his forces scattered, and he killed. I do not think it, therefore, to visit upon the captives the guilt of his intentions. I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.”
Davis ultimately agreed, and Dahlgren’s men were not executed. The papers fell into the hands of U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton after the war, where they disappeared forever.
On Sunday the 6th, a copy of the previous day’s Richmond Sentinel was delivered to Meade’s Potomac army headquarters. From this, Meade received the first definitive news that Dahlgren was dead. He wrote General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, “The Richmond Sentinel of March 5 has been received, which announces the capturing at King and queen (county) of a part of Dahlgren’s party, reported 90 men, and that Colonel Dahlgren was killed in the skirmish. I fear the account is true.”
Meade expressed dissatisfaction with Kilpatrick’s actions and attempts to cover them up. He pushed for Kilpatrick’s removal from the army, and he was soon transferred west to the Army of the Cumberland. Meade wrote his wife, “You have doubtless seen that Kilpatrick’s raid was an utter failure. I did not expect much from it. Poor Dahlgren I am sorry for.” When Admiral Dahlgren learned of his son’s death, he lamented in his diary, “How busy is death–oh, how busy indeed!”
Bibliography
- Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1953.
- Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Faust, Patricia L. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee. Scribner, (Kindle Edition), 2008.
- Garrison, Webb, True Tales of the Civil War: A Treasury of Unusual Stories During America’s Most Turbulent Era. New York: Gramercy, 1988.
- Longacre, Edward G. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Sears, Stephen W., Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books, (Kindle Edition), 2017.