Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/83

 Dahlgren's Raid. 71

company, to compile this brief record of the "last stand'" on the night of March i, 1864, but for which God only knows what would have been the fate, not only of President Davis ' and his Cabinet, but of the women and children of the city.

CLAMOR FOR EXECUTION.

Dahlgren's address and orders to his troopers, found on his body, when in his flight with a fragment of his men, he was killed by Confederate cavalry under Pollard, in King and Queen county, tell what might have been, and that might have been, is so horrible to contem.plate, that but for General R. E. Lee, the prisoners taken by Pollard would have been summarily executed. The Confederate Secretary of War, Mr. Seddon, and General Braxton Bragg urged execution; the Richmond papers and the public clamored for it. And the excited state of the popular mind over the "diabolical" scheme, as General Bragg characterized it, accounts in no small measure for failure to appreciate at the time the importance of the Hick's Farm event.

General Lee opened correspondence on the subject with Gen- eral Meade, who was a gentleman as well as a soldier, and upon the latter's denial of responsibility of the Federal government for Dahlgren's orders and purposes, set his face strongly against execution. He accepted General Meade's denial and wrote to Mr. Seddon as follows :

"These papers can only be accepted as evidence of his (Dahlgren's) intentions. It does not appear how far his men were cognizant of them, or that his course was sanctioned by the 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 right, therefore, to visit upon the captives the guilt of his intentions. * * * I do not think that reason and reflection would justify such a course (extreme measures). I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our conscience and posterity."