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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[502] his men. He saw a few men in the road, and ordered them to surrender He was answered by a fire from a few guns. The fire was returned by a few shots from the enemy's front. There was no “desperate fight;” there was no “cutting the way out,” nothing of the sort. A few guns were fired on each side, resulting in the killing of Col. Dahlgren-possibly by his own men-and the wounding of two or three privates. Thrown into confusion by the slight fire, and panic-stricken, the raiders fled down the road they had just come up, and endeavoured to escape through a field immediately in front of the concealed position of the Confederates. They were baffled in this by a creek which ran from the place of ambush into the Mattapony. Near this creek they camped during the remainder of the night, and, having been deserted completely by their officers, surrendered the next morning, probably eighty soldiers and thirty negroes-others being picked up during the day.

The great interest of the affair remained to be disclosed. There were discovered on the dead body of Dahlgren a written address to his men, and other documents, revealing to the startled sensibilities of the people of Richmond the horrours which they had narrowly escaped. The Confederates had here documentary evidence of the atrocious spirit of the enemy, which it was important to exhibit to the world; for whatever had been the constant assertion on this subject, the persistent denials of Torthem prints, their audacious recrimination, and the stereotypes of Federal hypocrisy about “Union,” “cause of humanity,” “hopes of the world,” etc., had heretofore imposed upon the credulous, and put a certain garb of virtue on the most iniquitous designs. But here at last the enemy had, by a document plainer and more significant than any published to the world from the bureaux of Washington, revealed the stark and deformed genius of the war.

On the person of Dahlgren there was discovered the following address to the officers and men of the command, written on a sheet of paper having in printed letters on the upper corner,