The Dahlgren Affair

the long version

March 5, 1864 was the day the Civil War changed to become what the Richmond Examiner called "a war of extermination, of indiscriminate slaughter and plunder." It changed because of a few sheets of paper found on a muddy trail outside of Richmond. Their legacy was a new and terrible style of warfare. The story begins with a daring cavalry raid to free thousands of Union prisoners held under desperate conditions in Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy. The raid fails, and the Union commander -- 21-year-old Ulric Dahlgren, a one-legged colonel, hero, and friend of Abraham Lincoln's -- is killed. On Dahlgren's body are found orders purportedly instructing his men to find and execute Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Confederate cabinet. - Jacket flap.