Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/555

 554 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Adjutant- General's office to see if copies of them, which had ap- peared in the Richmond papers, were correct, and immediately re- turned them again. The artificial leg was given to some army surgeons, to be used as a model. Colonel Dahlgren's body was brought to Richmond and buried, I heard, somewhere near the York River railroad depot; but by whom, or by whose order, I don't know, nor have I ever heard anything more about it.

And now to sum up: It is the universal belief of the Southern people that when General Kilpatrick and Colonel Dahlgren at- tempted their coiip de main upon Richmond, in 1864, it was done with a view, whilst holding the city temporarily, to release the Fede- ral prisoners; to " destroy and burn the hateful city." and to kill Jeff. Davis and Cabinet on the spot." Richmond at that time was filled with refugee ladies and children, whose husbands and parents were away in the armies, and the South was naturally filled with in- dignation at the expose of the object of the expedition. To use a trite expression " put the shoe on the other foot" let the North imagine General Early' s body to be found in the vicinity of Wash- ington, when his forces retired from there in July of the same year, with orders upon it, to his troops, to " destroy and burn the hateful city," "kill Abe Lincoln and Cabinet on the spot" "exhort- ing" long pent-up prisoners, with long pent-up revengeful feelings, to do it. I ask, would his remains be taken up tenderly and in- terred in the Congressional burying-ground, and his memory be cherished as a " murdered martyred hero?" The best men of the North now, in their cooler moments, may try to disabuse their minds of such an idea ; but it is a fact that any officer who could, at that time, have informed the Northern public that he had captured and destroyed Richmond and killed "Jeff. Davis and Cabinet on the spot,' ' the Presidency of the United States would have been buj: meagre compensation for him in the hearts of the masses of the people.

Personally, as a man educated to be a soldier, I deplore Colonel Ulric Dahlgren's sad fate. He was a young man, full of hope, of undoubted pluck, and inspired with hatred of "rebels." Fired by ambition, and longing to be at the head of " the braves who swept through the city of Richmond," his courage and enthusiasm over- flowed, and his naturally generous feelings were drowned. His mem- oranda and address to his troops were probably based upon the general instructions to the whole command.

The conception of the expedition, I have heard since the war, orig-