Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/535

Rh prominent leaders in Congress, high officials of the army and navy, frequently visited him and showed an interest in his welfare which his rank—that of lieutenant—and the nature and extent of his military services did not seem to justify. One day when Dahlgren had reached an advanced stage of convalescence, our friend found him in an abnormal condition of elation and excitement, and on asking the cause, was shown a document signed by President Lincoln, appointing Lieutenant Ulrich Dahlgren to be a colonel of cavalry in the United States army, and authorizing him to raise a regiment in that arm of the service, and to appoint his own subordinate officers. Our friend expressed his surprise at this sudden and remarkable elevation in rank, and the bestowal by the President on a mere youth of twenty years of such unusual honors and privileges, who, though he had lost a leg in battling for the preservation of the Union, had not seemingly performed any great or signal services, incidentally alluding to the marked and frequent attentions paid him by the most distinguished officials of the government. To this Dahlgren replied that, accidentally, he had been an humble contributor to the success of Meade at Gettysburg; that on the evening of the 2d of July, while returning with ten men from a scouting expedition, he had captured on the Emmettsburg road a Confederate scout, and taken from him, after much trouble, a dispatch from Adjutant-General Cooper to General Lee, informing the latter that President Davis, owing to the exposed position of Richmond and the landing of Federal troops at City Point, could not send forward any more reinforcements, and that the assemblage of an auxiliary army at Culpeper Court-house to attack Washington, so soon as General Lee had drawn Hooker's (Meade's) army sufficiently far north into Pennsylvania to be out of supporting distance, was impossible of accomplishment. Dahlgren stated that on discovering the purport of the dispatch and appreciating its importance he rode as fast as his horse could carry him to General Meade's headquarters in front of Gettysburg. On arriving there shortly after midnight he found that the General had been consulting with his corps commanders, and had resolved to withdraw his army to Pipe creek, the position that had been previously selected by General Warren, his chief of engineers, and in pursuance of that plan was then engaged in retiring his heaviest pieces of artillery from the front. A perusal of the dispatch captured and presented by Dahlgren wrought a sudden change in Meade's plans, and the artillery was quickly ordered back to the positions from which it had been withdrawn, and the Federal army made ready to recommence the battle on the following morning.