Many sensational stories, having not even a basis of truth, were put in circulation to exhibit the Confederate authorities as having acted with unwarrantable malignity toward the deceased Colonel Dahlgren. The fact was, that his body was sent to Richmond and decently interred in the Oakwood Cemetery, where other Federal soldiers were buried. The enormity of his offenses was not forgotten, but resentment against him ended with his life. It was also admitted that, however bad his preceding conduct had been, he met his fate gallantly, charging at the head of his men when he found himself inextricably encompassed by his foe.
Custer and Kilpatrick, who were to coöperate with him in the expedition, especially the first-named, manifested a saving degree of "that rascally virtue," as Charles Lee, of Revolutionary memory, called it. After the feeble demonstration upon some parked artillery which has been described, he fancied that he heard the roaring of cars coming with reënforcements, and retreated, burning the bridges behind him—a precaution quite in vain, as there were none there to pursue him.
Kilpatrick, followed as above stated by Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, who hung close upon his rear, finally reached the defenses of Richmond. There, out of respect to the field artillery he encountered, he turned off to cross the Chickahominy, and that night he was routed by the cavalry command of our gallant cavalier General Wade Hampton. Thus ended the combined movement with which Northern papers had regaled their readers by announcing as made "with instructions to sack the rebel capital."
During the first week in May, Major-General B. F. Butler landed at Bermuda Hundred with a considerable force, and moved up so as to cut the telegraph line and reach by a raiding party the railroad at Chester, between Richmond and Petersburg. General Ransom, then in command of the defenses at Richmond and those of Drury's Bluff, with a small force, attacked the advance of General Butler, and after a sharp skirmish compelled him to withdraw.
Meantime, because of the warning which Stuart had sent, General Ransom was summoned to Richmond to resist an impending assault by General Sheridan on the outer works north of the city. Taking the two disposable brigades of Gracie and Fry and a light battery, he hastened forward, arriving at the fortifications on the Mechanicsville Turnpike; just in time to see a battery of artillery, then entirely unsupported, repulse the advance of Sheridan. During the night the clerks and citizens, under General G. W. Custis Lee, had formed a thin line along part of the fortifications on the west side of the city. As the day advanced, Oracle's brigade was thrown in front of the works and pressed forward to feel Sheridan; but it was regarded as worse than useless with two small brigades to engage in an open country many times their number of well-appointed cavalry, Sheridan showed no purpose to attack, but withdrew from before our defenses, and the two brigades returned to the vicinity of Drury's Bluff—the approach on the south side of James River, by forces under General Butler, being then considered the most imminent danger to Richmond.
After the battle of the Wilderness, on May 4th and 5th, as hereafter narrated, General Grant moved his army toward Spottsylvania Court-House, and General Lee made a corresponding movement. At this time Sheridan, with a large force of United States cavalry, passed around and to the rear of our army, so as to place himself on the road to Richmond, which, in the absence of a garrison to defend it, he may have not unreasonably thought might be surprised and captured.
Stuart, our most distinguished cavalry commander—fearless, faithful Stuart—soon knew of Sheridan's movement, perceived its purpose, and, with his usual devotion to his country's welfare, hastily collected such of his troops as were near, and pursued Sheridan. He fell upon Sheridan's rear and flank at Beaver Dam Station, where a pause had been made to destroy the railroad, some cars, and commissary's stores, and drove it before him. The route of the enemy being unmistakably toward Richmond, Stuart, to protect the capital, or at least to delay attack, so as to give time to make preparation for defense, made a détour around Sheridan, and by a forced march got in front of him, taking position at a place called Yellow Tavern, about seven or eight miles from Richmond. Here, with the daring and singleness of purpose which characterized his whole career, he decided, notwithstanding the great inequality between his force and that of his foe, to make a stand, and offer persistent resistance to his advance. The respective strength of the two commands, as given by Colonel Heros von Borke, chief of General Stuart's staff, was, Stuart, eleven hundred; Sheridan, eight thousand. While engaged in this desperate service, General Stuart sent couriers to Richmond to give notice of the approach of the enemy, so that the defenses might be manned.
Notwithstanding the great disparity of force, the contest was obstinate and protracted, and fickle Fortune cheered our men with several brilliant successes. Stuart, who in many traits resembled the renowned Murat, like him was always a leader when his cavalry charged. On this occasion he is represented when he was wounded to have been quite in advance, to have fired the last load in his pistol, and to have been shot by a fugitive whom he found cowering under a fence, and ordered to surrender. The "heavy battalions" at last prevailed, our line was broken, and our chieftain, though mortally wounded, still kept in his saddle, invoking his men to continue the fight.[94] Our gallant chieftain was brought wounded into Richmond, a noble sacrifice on the altar of duty.
Long accustomed to connect him only with daring exploits and brilliant successes, there was much surprise and deeper sorrow when the news spread through the city. Admired as a soldier, loved as a man, honored as a Christian patriot, to whom duty to his God and his country was a supreme law, the intense anxiety for his safety made us all shrink from realizing his imminent danger. When I saw him in his very last hours, he was so calm, and physically so strong, that I could not believe that he was dying, until the surgeon, after I had left his bedside, told me he was bleeding inwardly, and that the end was near.
Grant's plan of campaign, as now revealed to us, was to continue his movement against Lee's army, and, if, as experience had taught him, he should be unable to defeat it and move directly to his objective point, Richmond, he was to continue his efforts so as to reach the James River below Richmond, and thus to connect with the array under General Butler, moving up on the south side of the James. The topography of the country favored that design. The streams in the country in which he was operating all trended toward the southeast, and his change of position was frequently made under cover of them. Butler, in the mean time, was ordered with the force of his department, about twenty thousand, reënforced by Gilmer's division of ten thousand, to move up to City Point, there intrench, and concentrate all his troops as rapidly as possible. From this base he was expected to operate so as to destroy the railroad connections between Richmond and the South. On the 7th of May he telegraphed that he had "destroyed many miles of railroad, and got a position which, with proper supplies, we can hold out against the whole of Lee's army."