March 1864–The Richmond Boondoggle and Tales of Assassination

March 19, 2014Posted inHistorical events, Historical people

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Union Brigadier Gen­er­al Hugh Jud­son Kil­patrick had big plans and even big­ger dreams. In des­per­a­tion, Lin­coln approved a raid by the 1st Ver­mont Cal­vary upon Rich­mond that even the Com­man­der of the Army didn’t sup­port. It was a star-crossed ven­ture with con­se­quences that no one could foretell.

March 19, 1864 Danville North Star

DEATH OF COL. DAHLGREN

Colonel Ulric Dahlgren
Colonel Ulric Dahlgren

The fol­low­ing is the arti­cle in the Rich­mond Sen­tinel of the 5th, announc­ing the death of Col. Dahlgren: “The gal­lant Dahlgreen is dead. After leav­ing Rich­mond, he pro­ceed­ed with a por­tion of his men toward the penin­su­la through the coun­try of King and Queen, where he met Lieut. Col. Pol­lard of the 9th Vir­ginia, and had a sharp encounter, in which Col. Dahlgren was shot dead. Some sev­en­ty or eighty of his men were cap­tured. The remain­der has joined Kil­patrick as has been already stat­ed. Col. Dahlgren was one of the bravest men of Amer­i­ca, and his death will be regret­ted by all who ever knew him. He had lost a leg in the ser­vice and had just arrived at that peri­od of con­va­les­cence when he could take the sad­dle, when he was cut down by war’s relent­less hand.

Upon his per­son were found an address to his men and a mem­o­ran­dum of the route he was to take with his com­mand, when he left Kil­patrick, where he was to go, what he was to do, when he was sup­posed to be there, and when he was to rejoin the main force.

The address to his men is a most spir­it-stir­ring and patri­ot­ic appeal to his sym­pa­thies and val­or on behalf of their fel­low sol­diers who are suf­fer­ing impris­on­ment in the loath­some dun­geons and upon the desert islands of the Con­fed­er­a­cy. He begs them not to fal­ter or flag, but to fol­low him to open prison doors and putting arms into the hands of their released brethren, they would march togeth­er to kill Davis and Cab­i­net, and then return home to their friends, ready and anx­ious for fur­ther deeds of valor.”

Lat­er accounts rep­re­sent that there is no doubt that the pre­tend­ed address said to have been upon the per­son of Col Dahlgren was a bold forgery. This decep­tion was nec­es­sary to excuse the bru­tal­i­ty with which his body was treat­ed. He was a brave, spir­it­ed young offi­cer, and noth­ing but the fear his true chival­ry inspired could have induced the cow­ard­ly revenge grat­i­fied in the abuse of his life­less remains.

February, 1864–The General and His Demons

February 4, 2014Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, Historical sites, NSM articles

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

A com­pli­cat­ed fam­i­ly and men­tal ill­ness pushed and pulled a man who became one of the most accom­plished gen­er­als in the Civ­il War.

Sherman's Meridian campaign was a practice run for his march-to-the-sea.
Sher­man’s Merid­i­an cam­paign was a prac­tice run for his march-to-the-sea.

The news was slow in Feb­ru­ary ’64: Lincoln’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion decree, free­ing slaves only in rebel states, had become law Jan­u­ary 1, but its true con­se­quences had yet to be deter­mined; the win­ter months had closed down the war in Vir­ginia and reports from the east­ern-cen­tric press about events in the low­er South, absent some epic bat­tle, con­tin­ued to be spot­ty. How­ev­er, there was a minor cam­paign in mid-Feb­ru­ary against a town in Mis­sis­sip­pi that helped cement the improb­a­ble rise of a Union com­man­der. His rela­tion­ship with U.S. Grant would cat­a­pult him to become the Gen­er­al and Chief’s co-archi­tect and col­lab­o­ra­tor in a new mil­i­tary strat­e­gy that was waged against the South.

The Largest Refugee Crises Ever Created on the American Continent

January 9, 2014Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Black fugitives forging the Rappahannock river.
Black fugi­tives forg­ing the Rap­pa­han­nock river.

Civ­il War his­to­ry often gives short shrift to the fact that the con­flict pre­cip­i­tat­ed the largest refugee cri­sis ever seen on the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent. Before we read Danville’s North Star reports for Jan­u­ary of 1864, it is nec­es­sary to under­stand how the Union was han­dling the freed­men prob­lem that was cre­at­ed by Lincoln’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion on Sep 22, 1862.

The Procla­ma­tion declared that if a rebel state did not return to the Union by Jan­u­ary 1, all slaves would become free. How­ev­er, slaves did not wait until the begin­ning of the year; they began stream­ing toward Union lines and the refugee cri­sis was on. One reporter wrote, “There were men, women and chil­dren in every state of dis­ease or decrepi­tude often near­ly naked with flesh torn by the ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ences of their escape.” But if ex-slaves thought they had a bet­ter life, they were often mis­tak­en. “Often the slaves met prej­u­dices against their col­or more bit­ter than they had left behind.”