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

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.