The Dahlgren Raid

[L Verge]

(05-23-2015 08:38 AM)Gene C Wrote:  After some additional reading, I am beginning to lean toward the position that the Dahlgren papers are real, and written by Ulric Dahlgren. Who authorized his actions, if anyone, is still questionable to me and I plan to do some additional reading. I found this article very informative. It is a bit long.

http://www.historynet.com/jefferson-davis

One of the nice things about Roger's site is all the knowledgeable, friendly people here and the opportunity to learn new things. While I'm not quite ready to eat crow, I'm on the lookout for some palatable Humble Pie. This place might work.
http://humblepieok.com/menu

Thanks to those who gave me an incentive to learn more about a part of history where my knowledge was limited.
Now if I can just find a location a little closer to home.

Thanks for sharing that HistoryNet article, Gene. I had never seen it and learned quite a few new details - including this quote:

"Perhaps, too, Lincoln repeated for the cavalryman a remark he had made at the time of Chancellorsville, to the effect that the Confederate capital was so lightly defended that Kilpatrick’s Federal cavalry ‘could have safely gone in and burnt every thing & brought us Jeff Davis.’4 Certainly the thought of Davis’ capture was fresh in the president’s mind–after all, he approved it as a stated objective of Butler’s recently aborted Richmond raid. (It may be noted here that by the generally accepted rules of civilized warfare of the 1860s, the capture of the opposing head of state and his chief advisers was a legitimate wartime objective and no doubt was discussed as openly in Richmond as it was in Washington. Assassination of civilian leaders, on the other hand, was regarded as beyond the pale.) Whatever their discussion may have included, when Lincoln sent Kilpatrick on to Secretary of War Stanton to work out the detailed planning for the raid, Jefferson Davis was not listed in any respect as a stated objective.

"As will be seen, there is good reason to believe that Kilpatrick’s planning meeting in Stanton’s office at the War Department was pivotal in regard to the case of the Dahlgren papers. For now, suffice it to say that the sole surviving account of the meeting is Kilpatrick’s, dated February 16, and consists of his plan for the raid as submitted, at Stanton’s request, to the army’s cavalry command."

The first sentence of the first paragraph says a lot about Lincoln's previous thoughts if his troops could get to Richmond... The rest seems to imply that those thoughts might later be committed to strategy at the meeting of Kilpatrick and Stanton??

BTW: My thoughts exactly about the discussions on this forum. I find myself googling a lot these days in order to keep up with some of you and your great knowledge.