Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[500] second in command. One branch of the expedition under Gen. Custer was to create a diversion and distract attention in the direction of Charlottesville; the other was to divide at Beaver Dam, one part of it under Gen. Kilpatrick to move down on the north side of Richmond, the other, commanded by Dahlgren, to cross the James River at some point in Goochland County, make an attack upon the south of the capital, which was supposed to be undefended, release the Federal prisoners there, fire “the hateful city,” and murder in cold blood the President and his principal officers! Such was the fiendish plot of the enemy, the chief part of which was to be enacted by a young man some twenty-odd years old, whose education, social pretensions, and soft manners would scarcely have given one the idea of an enterprise which compassed all the revenge, villainy, and cowardice of the most savage warfare.

The parts of Custer and Kilpatrick were very weakly carried out. The first reached the vicinity of Charlottesville, and finding Stuart's horse artillery there, retreated at a rapid pace, and fell back to his infantry supports at Madison Court-House. The second, moving down on the Brook turnpike, came, on the 1st March, near the outer line of the Richmond fortifications, and without once getting within range of the artillery, took up a line of march down the Peninsula. Meanwhile, Dahlgren, not venturing to cross the high water of the James River, abandoned his enterprise on the south side of Richmond, and, unapprised of the ludicrous cowardice and retreat of Kilpatrick, proposed, by moving down the Westham plank-road, which skirted the river, to effect a junction with him, with a view to further operations or to the security of his retreat.

On the night of the 1st March, Dahlgren pursued his way towards Richmond, with seven or eight hundred horsemen. The night was very dark; there was nothing on the road but a force of local soldiery, composed of a battalion of artisans in the Richmond Armory and a battalion of department clerks; this thin force of unskilled soldiers was all that stood between Dahlgren and the revenge he had plotted to pour in blood and fire upon the devoted capital of the Confederacy. But it was sufficient. The valorous cavalry that came on with shouts of “Charge the d-d militia,” broke at the first fire; and a single fire of musketry, that killed eleven of his men, sufficed to scatter in shameful flight Dahlgren's picked command of “braves.”

After this dastardly event, Dahlgren, anxious now only for his retreat, divided what of his force he could collect, so as to increase his chances of escape. The force under his immediate command moved down the south bank of the Pamunkey, and in the afternoon of the next day crossed the Mattapony at Ayletts in King and Queen County. As the ferry-boat at this place had been taken up and hid, Lieut. Pollard, who had posted from Richmond to chase the raiders, supposing they would not attempt to