The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War [Hardcover]

Duane P. Schultz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

March 5th 1864 was the day the American Civil War became what the "Richmond Examiner" called a "war of extermination, of indiscriminate slaughter and plunder". It changed because of some papers found on a track outside Richmond in Virginia. Their legacy was a new and terrible style of warfare. The story begins with a daring cavalry raid that failed. The Union commander, Ulrich Dahlgren, was killed, and on his body orders were found purportedly instructing his men to assassinate Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. The immediate consequence of this was an outpouring if indignant rage throughout the South. The Union army and politicians disclaimed all knowledge of the orders, and challenged their authenticity. Not long afterwards, Davis, in retaliation, authorized the use of terrorism against civilians in the North. Beside Dahlgren, the actors in this intrigue inlude Thomas Hines, who organized the campaign of terror and Elizabeth van Lew, a Richmond woman who spied for the Union. The political story is fascinating as well: Abraham Lincoln and Davis were desperate men in danger of losing the war, one at the ballot box, the other on the battlefield.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Author Duane Schultz offers a fascinating chronicle of Civil War espionage in this account of the infamous Dahlgren raid, a bold attempt by a small detachment of Union cavalry to free prisoners of war held by the Confederates in Richmond. The effort failed, but its consequences were enormous; allegedly found among slain commander Ulric Dahlgren's papers was an order to assassinate Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Schultz argues persuasively that the papers were a forgery, but whatever the truth, they started a controversy that encouraged Davis to order secret agents based in Canada to launch a campaign of terror on the Northern home front. He describes a few stunning near- misses: the Confederates once nearly captured Vice President Andrew Johnson, and in another plot almost took possession of the only warship on the Great Lakes. They also engaged in a primitive form of biological warfare: collecting the garments of yellow fever victims and distributing them in Washington, D.C. (to no apparent effect). This narrative of Civil War intrigue is sprinkled with true tales of invisible ink, railroad sabotage, and prison escapes; in one remarkable episode, a Confederate spy dresses up like a lady, attends a soiree held by Union officers, and learns critical intelligence from his talkative dance partners. All told, this is an outstanding work of popular history on an aspect of the Civil War long kept hidden. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Schultz's (Quantrill's War; Wake Island) lively writing is perfectly suited to the exciting and controversial Yankee cavalry raid against Richmond, Va., in late winter 1864. The raid failed, Yankee colonel Ulric Dahlgren (son of Admiral John A. Dahlgren) was killed and the Confederacy published the contents of papers allegedly found on Dahlgren's body. Officially, the cavalry was to enter Richmond and rescue thousands of Union prisoners of war; the captured papers detailed an uglier objective?the assassination of Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, and the leveling of the city. Were the papers found on Dahlgren's body authentic or were they forged by a government desperate to bring more pressure on the North? To this day, historians debate the papers' authenticity. Schultz chronicles the raid, then examines the papers, their publication and ultimate fate. Along the way, readers are introduced to an astonishing array of characters?Judson "Kill Cavalry" Kilpatrick, the Federal raid commander; Thomas Hines, a Confederate agent who was given latitude to retaliate against Northern targets; Elizabeth Van Lew, the Richmond woman who ran a successful Union spy operation throughout the war; and numerous others whose lives were affected by these momentous events. Schultz also links the failed raid and the Confederate reaction, which included an attempt to burn New York City, failed attempts to liberate Confederate prisoners, a raid on St. Albans, Vt., and other acts of terror. The subject and Schultz's lucid prose make this a great addition to any Civil War library. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 298 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393046621
• ISBN-13: 978-0393046625
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,113,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading......, May 15, 2003

By 

lordhoot "lordhoot" (Anchorage, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War (Paperback)

This proves to be a pretty interesting conspiracy book which in some way, may related to our current problems with terrorist activites. Here, we have an alleged set of papers found on the body of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren who was leading one of the cavalry columns which was supposed to free the Union POWs in Richmond. The papers found states that Dahlgren and his men planned to mass murder the Confederate government and burn Richmond to the ground. These papers gave a pretext for the South to go ahead with their own plans to conduct terroristic actions against the North. Was the papers planted and forged? Its a story of truth, half-truths and lies. One of the central themes that the book covered was if these Dahlgren papers were real or fake. Duane Schultz (the author) believed them to be fake. I find logic in what he is saying and believed that faked papers were meant to arouse the Southern spirit which have been in doldrum and give pretext for deseperate actions in the north. Well written, nicely researched and well presented, the book proves to be informative and easy to read. Of course, you have keep an open mind as well.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-written but one huge flaw, February 11, 2000

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War (Hardcover)

This book is colorful, interesting, and full of vividly-drawn characters and events. This makes it all the more surprising--and disappointing--that the author errs so glaringly on one of the central tenets of the entire book.

Perhaps in an attempt to provide a "fresh" approach to a subject covered by numerous other historians and writers in this and past generations, Mr. Schultz, through tortured logic, turns established and documented history on its ear. How? He claims that, rather than the infamous 1864 Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid being the terrorist attack it was-- with designs to burn Richmond to the ground and murder the entire Confederate cabinet--that it was merely an attempt to free Federal prisoners; the Confederates, Schultz claims, concocted the arson-murder scheme through (necessarily) forgery, lies, and conspiracy, then used these nefarious acts to launch a real campaign of terror--against the North.

This huge gaffe, which gives only passing credence to the mountain of evidence that indicts Dahlgren, leaves the reader with a similar feeling to having watched an exciting movie for two hours, only to be let down by a horribly disappointing ending.

Mr. Schultz may have gotten his villains right in his previous book about Quantrill and his raiders, but he gets them reversed here. A host of past and contemporary historians and writers from both Northern and Southern perspectives dealing with the same subject provide much more convincing evidence that Colonel Dahlgren, brave as he clearly was, was not framed, but through misplaced youthful zeal and misguided duty, came very close to orchestrating one of the greatest and most criminal massacres in American history.

A much more credible contemporary account can be found in Stephen W. Sears' chapter on the Dahlgren raid in his recent book "Controversies and Commanders, Dispatches from the Army of the Potomac."

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book wasa big disappointment., February 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War (Hardcover)

This is a well-written but poorly-argued effort to concoct a conspiracy theory about certain events in the Civil War. It is uses few primary sources and not well. It seems a clumsy combination of Jones' book Eight Hours Before Richmond and Tidwell's April '65 with very little that is new. Far too many errors of fact make it a poor account of either the Kilpatrick Raid or the Confederate spy service. It wasted my time and money.