Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/359

 COL. ULRIC DAHLGREN, THE DEFEATED RAIDER.

Editor of the Confederate Column: 

Sir,—In reply to the thrilling and romantic story of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, and his attempt to enter Richmond and carry off President Davis, dead or alive, which appeared in the Confederate Column of your paper of March 21, ultimo, I have nothing to say; but that, if not drawn from the imagination of the writer, it may well be accepted as an interesting foundation for a war novel, but the incidents therein related, if true, were not creditable to the hero.

I have been, however, requested to state the facts about this young man's death and burial in the interest of history, as I may justly claim in this connection to have been "magna peri fui."

In March, 1864, an orderly of General Arnold Elzey, who at the time commanded the department of Richmond, came to my headquarters on the Williamsburg Road with an order, he stated, from President Davis, transmitted through General Elzey to me, to go the next morning to the depot of the York River Railroad with a detail of men from my command the Tenth and Nineteenth Confederate Artillery, at the battery called the Richmond Defences.

Under this order, with a detail of some half-dozen men and a wagon, I went to the York River depot, and was shown the body of a man in a rough, undressed pine coffin, and found it marked in stencil on the lid of the coffin with his name "Ulric Dahlgren."

Colonel Dahlgren had been killed by a squad of men while rapidly retreating from the attack on Richmond, in which he had been defeated. On his person was found the order to his men, should they be able to enter Richmond, to at once proceed to the Libby Prison and deliver the prisoners; and also