Duane Schultz Book (the Dahlgren

¶ … Duane Schultz book (the Dahlgren Affair) effectively utilizes the themes of history, drama, bloodshed, war, politics and mystery to weave a tale that originated during the Civil War. Schultz's use of high quality characterization and well-paced narrative adds to the value of the book. There are some flaws in the book, and some critics assert that Schultz either fabricated portions of the story, or just made honest errors, and those discrepancies will be reviewed later in this paper.

The genesis of the plot that launches this well-told story is based on an actual attempt to free Union prisoners from the terrible conditions in Libby Prison and Belle Isle prison in Richmond, Virginia. The fact that many Union soldiers had either surrendered or were captured and were being held there - many reportedly near starvation and living in squalor - was eating away at leaders in the North. And so, President Lincoln, who was up for re-election soon and needed to get any positive publicity he could, authorized an attack on Richmond, ostensibly in order to free the prisoners at Libby.

It was March 2, 1864. But the attack went awry, and in fact when Union Army Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was killed by Confederate soldiers defending Richmond and the prison, papers were found on Dahlgren's body that to this day have historians confused. The controversial nature of the papers has provided historical writer Schultz with a perfect mystery to complement his book. There is nothing like a lingering conspiracy theory to provide momentum to a book; to wit, many books have been published about the John F. Kennedy assassination.

The story - as it has unfolded over time - goes that these papers were stuck in one of Dahlgren's pockets and found when he was killed. In that paperwork (two folded documents and a pocket notebook), discovered by a 13-year-old boy associated with the South's war effort, the troops under General Kilpatrick's command (he was the overall commander of the unit and Dahlgren, a one-legged, 21-year-old officer was assigned to attack Richmond from the south with a 460-man unit) were given the task of assassinating Confederate President Jefferson Davis and burning Richmond to the ground. Because those documents have been lost somewhere along the line, there is no proof positive that such a plot was underway during those error-prone raids.

But meanwhile, the truth about the alleged note notwithstanding, the book paints a thorough picture of the conditions in the Libby Prison (where approximately 1,500 officers were incarcerated), and the prison on Belle Isle (where an estimated 10,000 men were held) a perfect build-up to the events that would keep historians in debate mode for years, even up to today. If one is going to portray a conspiracy that reportedly occurred smack dab in the middle of a horrifically bloody and brutal war, the reasons for the attempted liberation of imprisoned Union troops should be well grounded. Schultz does a great job in that regard.

On pages 58-59 readers are given the grim realities of the prison. The author points out that the Confederate army had so little food to serve their own soldiers, there was hardly any left to feed enemy soldiers held as prisoners.

At the Libby Prison, the daily fare was "...a piece of cold, clammy bread baked from unsifted cornmeal... [and] sometimes there was vegetable soup, but few men had cups or plates to contain it." Many men simply used their shoes as cups, so they would be certain to get at least a little of the sparse nutrition that was being delivered. Moreover, "Many prisoners went insane," Schultz writes (p. 58). The rats at Libby Prison were "so large" that they were fearless, and they crawled "...freely over the men day and night, spreading disease" (p. 58). The prison guards were so cruel they were known to simply shoot and kill select prisoners who they saw looking out the windows, Schultz explains on page 59.

Men were forced to relieve themselves were they stood," and lice "swarmed over the bare ground in such numbers that the dirt appeared to be in motion" (p. 59). Over at Belle Isle (ironically named "pretty island"), the enlisted men held there received rations that were "moldy and rife with bugs."

Meanwhile, President Lincoln was besieged with letters from family members of the prisoners in Richmond, who were urging him to try to rescue those men. He was also burdened down with death threats (p. 64). "...A great many letters arrived at the White House warning of plots to kidnap or kill the president," Schultz writes, but Lincoln ordered his secretaries to "throw the letters away..."

The White House was open to the public, and each morning Lincoln was met with strangers who had been let in by doorkeepers (Lincoln believed that it was the "people's house"), and the visitors (some of whom slept in the hallways, according to Schultz's account) were insistent, "sometimes grabbing his arm until the gaunt, tired man had to struggle to pull himself free" (p. 65). So the stage was set in Schultz's book for Lincoln to authorize an attempt to free the prisoners. The New York Times (November 28, 1863) ran a headline (based on supposedly first-hand accounts of surgeons who had been released from Belle Isle) reading: "Fifty Victims Every Day; Disease, starvation and Death; Sick Denied Hospital Treatment; Shocking Pictures of Destitution and Abject Wretchedness" (p. 65).

But Schultz's book isn't all death, rats, and depressing scenes. In Chapter 7 he writes about how troops from the South and the North bartered with each other across the Rapidan River in February 1864. Sentries from both sides often crossed the river to trade items - "tobacco for food, newspapers for coffee" - and there "was no need for guns, not even angry words, just one tired soldier to another talking about their disgust with the war, their comrades lost, their desire to go home" (p. 84). The only fear these bartering adversaries had, Schultz writes, was that their own officers would find out their were fraternizing with the enemy. "If northern and southern soldiers became too friendly, they might be reluctant to go back to war," Schultz explains on page 84.

The day of the attempted incursion into Richmond, with Dahlgren's forces reduced to about eighty men, the rebels attacked and the Union troops were "Tired, hungry, and demoralized...in no mood to fight" (p. 140). But fight they did, albeit the rebels now had alerted all the troops available, even "...local civilians had grabbed their rifles and left their homes" to kill the intruders from the north. Soon, Dahlgren's troops are defeated and he is shot dead. The next morning 13-year-old William Littlepage, looking for a gold watch on one of the dead Yankees, instead found the papers on Dahlgren's body, and turned them in. The boy gave the papers to his schoolmaster, whose "curiosity would change history" (p. 145).

On March 4, Schultz asserts on page 152, General Fitzhugh Lee (Robert E. Lee's nephew) was handed the papers that reportedly stated: "...kill Jeff Davis and cabinet...on the spot." Soon Jefferson Davis was shown the document, according to Schultz's account, and on March 5, the newspapers - given a chance to see the papers - printed inflammatory editorials and headlines decrying the Yankees as having "diabolical plans" of "the band of robbers and thieves..." who "very richly merit death" (p. 155).

The publicity spawned by the printing of the apparent plot to assassinate Jefferson Davis caused a great deal of anger in Richmond of course, but it also created a political stir in the north. But beyond all the polemics and war-related fury the validity of what was or was not written in Dahlgren's papers is addressed by Schultz. And a reader can only pour through Schultz's narrative and attempt to learn whether the alleged plot was a forgery - used by the rebels to stir up passions from within their own ranks and justify future attacks against the Union army - or whether indeed Dahlgren had been assigned to carry out such a dastardly deed.

On page 187, Schultz asks, "If Dahlgren had been intent on political assassination, why put it in writing? Verbal orders would have sufficed." Moreover, if those orders had in fact existed in the form that the rebels alleged, "so damning to Dahlgren," why then did he not destroy them "during his retreat from Richmond?" (p. 187). Any officer - even those far less experienced than Dahlgren - would have known enough about military procedures to "destroy incriminating documents in the chaos of a running retreat, with death or capture imminent," writes Schultz on page 187. To read these particular pages carefully and thoroughly, one can discern that Schultz is doubtful of the veracity of the assertions - widespread and still alive all these years later - that such a bold strategy had been put into place.

General Robert E. Lee wrote to his counterpart in the north, General Meade, asking if indeed the Union army had planned to kill Davis and sack Richmond. Meade replied (p. 189) that "...neither the United States Government, myself, nor General Kilpatrick authorized, sanctioned, or approved the burning of the city of Richmond and the killing of Mr. Davis..."

Subsequent chapters in Schultz's book deal with the complications of retrieving Dahlgren's body and giving it a proper burial in the north, and with an ill-fated attempt by the Confederates to create chaos and draw blood in northern cities (Chicago among them) by sending disguised mercenaries down from Canada.

But Chapter 22 ("Desperate Measures: Who Wrote the Dahlgren Papers?") is loaded with Schultz's own beliefs and the views of others as regards the legitimacy of the papers. The people in the south believed the papers were real, and those in the north chose to believe the opposite. On pages 242-245 Schultz reprints what he asserts are the actual orders that Dahlgren was carrying with him. Back and forth, back and forth the evidence and the arguments go in this chapter. What is a reader to believe?