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STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. HALBACH.

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short distance, and there spend the night. My party consisted of myself, Littlepage, the "lieutenant," and several other gentlemen of King and Queen County. We walked into the woods about a quarter of a mile, and sat down.

"Up to this time, we had not even an intimation of the name and rank of the officer commanding the enemy. In fact, we felt no curiosity to know. All we cared for was to punish as severely as possible the raiders with whom we were contending. We knew that one man was killed, but knew not who he was. We were just getting our places for the night, and wrapping up with blankets, garments, etc., such as we had, for the ground was freezing, and we dared not make a fire, when Littlepage pulled out a segar-case, and said: 'Mr. Halbach, will you have a segar?' 'No,' said I; 'but where did you get segars these hard times?' He replied that he had got them out of the pocket of the Yankee who had been killed, and that he had also taken from the same man a memorandum-book and some papers. 'Well,' said I, 'William, you must give me the papers, and you may keep the segar-case.'

"Littlepage then remarked that the dead Yankee had a wooden leg. Here the Lieutenant, greatly agitated, exclaimed: 'How do you know he has a wooden leg?'

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"I know he has,' replied Littlepage, 'because I caught hold of it, and tried to pull it off.'

"There!' replied the Lieutenant, 'you have killed Col. Dahlgren, who was in command of the enemy. His men were devoted to him, and I would advise you all to take care of yourselves now, for if the Yankees catch you with anything belonging to him, they will certainly hang us all to the nearest tree.'

"Of course it was impossible for us to learn the contents of the papers, without making a light to read them by, or waiting till the next morning. We did the latter; and, as soon as day broke, the papers were read, and found to contain every line and every word as afterwards copied into the Richmond newspapers. Dahlgren's name was signed to one or more of the papers, and also written on the inside of the front cover of his memorandum-book. Here the date of purchase, I suppose, was added. The book had been written with a degree of haste clearly indicated by the frequent interlineations and corrections, but the orders referred to had also been re-written on a separate sheet of paper; and, as thus copied, were published to the world. Some of the papers were found loose in Dahlgren's pockets, others were between the leaves of the memorandumbook.

"The papers thus brought to light were preserved by myself in the continual presence of witnesses of unquestionable veracity, until about two o'clock in the afternoon of the day after their capture; at which time myself and party met Lieut. Pollard, who, up to this time, knew nothing in the world of the existence of the Dahlgren Papers. At his request, I let him read the papers; after doing which he requested me to let him carry them to Richmond. At first, I refused, for I thought that I knew what to do with them quite as well as any one else. But I was finally induced, by my friends, against my will, to surrender the papers to Lieut. Pollard, mainly in consideration of the fact that they would reach Richmond much sooner through him than through a semi-weekly mail. The papers which were thus handed over to the Confederate Government—I state it againwere correctly copied by the Richmond newspapers.

A thousand and one falsehoods have been told about this affair-by our own men as well as by the Yankees. Some of our own men were actuated by motives of selfishness and ambition to claim each one for himself the whole credit of the affair; when, in fact, the credit belongs to no particular individual, but, collectively, to the whole of our party. We were a strange medley of regulars, raw troops, old farmers, preachers, schoolboys etc. But I believe that all present did their duty, only to find that all the credit was

afterwards claimed, with a considerable degree of success among the ignorant, by those who were not present.

"The credit of the command of our party belongs alone to Capt. Fox, than whom there was no more chivalric spirit in either army. In making this statement, I am actuated only by a desire to do justice to the memory of one who was too unassuming to sound his own trumpet. I am also told, by soldiers, that Lieut. Pollard deserves a considerable degree of credit, for the part he played in following and harassing the enemy up to the time they took the right fork of the road near Butler's Tavern.

"You are, of course, aware of the fact that the enemy has always denied the authenticity of the Dahlgren Papers, and declared them to be forgeries.

utter absurdity and falsehood of such a charge, I submit the following:

To prove the

"1. The papers were taken by Littlepage from the person of a man whose name he had never heard. It was a dark night, and the captor, with the aid of the noon-day sun, could not write at all. I afterwards taught him to write a little in my school.

"The question occurs: Can a boy who cannot write at all, write such papers, and sign to them an unknown name? If they had been forged by any one else, would they have been placed in the hands of a child? Could any one else have forged an unknown and unheard of name?

"2. The papers were handed to me immediately after their capture, in the presence of gentlemen of undoubted integrity and veracity, before whom I can prove that the papers not only were not, but could not have been, altered or interpolated by myself. These gentlemen were with me every moment of the time between my receiving the papers and my delivering them to Lieut. Pollard.

"3. If Lieut. Pollard had made any alterations in the papers, these would have been detected by every one who read the papers before they were given to him, and afterwards read them in the newpapers. But all agree that they were correctly copied. In short, human testimony cannot establish any fact more fully than the fact that Col. Ulric Dahlgren was the author of the "Dahlgren Papers."

"With regard to the part taken by myself in this affair, I lay no claim to any credit. I do not write this version of the affair to gain notoriety. I have made it a rule not to mention my own name, except in cases where I found that false impressions were being made upon the public mind. You know very well that my being Littlepage's captain entitled me to claim the capture of the papers for myself. But this I have never done. And, even when called upon by Gen. Fitz. Lee to give my affidavit to the authenticity of the papers, I wrote him word that Littlepage was the captor of them. In his letter to Lieut. Pollard, which was forwarded to me, he asked: Who is Capt. Halbach? ' I replied, for myself, that I was nothing more than the humble captain of a company of school-boys, and that if I deserved any credit, it was only so much as he might choose to give me for preserving the papers, when advised to destroy them, to avoid being captured with them in my possession, which, I was told, would result in the hanging of our little party.

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"I have never given the information herein contained before, because I had hoped that it would be given to the public by others, and I give it now, because I regard it as a duty to do so. My own course, after the killing of Dahlgren, was as follows: I joined those who agreed to bury him decently in a coffin, and in compliance with a promise made to a scout by the name of Hogan, I prepared a neat little head-board with my own hands, to mark his grave. This was not put up, because the messenger from Mr. Davis for the body of Dahlgren arrived while we were taking it out of the ground where i had been hastily buried."

CHAPTER XXXI.

OPENING OF THE GREAT SPRING CAMPAIGN OF 1864.-EXPLANATION OF RENEWED CONFIDETE IN RICHMOND.-PROSPECT FOR THE CONFEDERATES IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1864.A NEW THEORY OF PEACE.-VALUE OF ENDURANCE. THE MISSION OF MESSRS. HOLCOMBE, CLAY AND THOMPSON. THEY LEAVE WILMINGTON WHEN THE CAMPAIGN ON THE RAPIDAN OPENS.-U. 8. GRANT APPOINTED LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF THE FEDERAL ARMIES.-CHARACTER OF GRANT.-COMPARED WITH BUELL.-GEN. GRANT'S LOW AND GROSS CONCEPTION OF WAR.-THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PREPARES AN ARMY ORGANIZATION OF ONE MILLION OF MEN.-DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEDERAL FORCES IN VIRGINIA.-STRENGTH OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.-POSITION AND NUMBERS OF GEN. LEE.—HIS GREAT ANXIETY.— APPEAL OF CONFEDERATE WOMEN.-THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS.-GRANT CROSSES THE RAPIDAN.-LEE SPRINGS UPON HIS FLANK.-ATTACK OF EWELL AND HILL.-THE CONFEDERATE LINE BROKEN.—GORDON'S SPLENDID CHARGE.—GALLANT CONDUCT OF PEGRAM'S AND HAYS' DIVISIONS.-NIGHT ATTACK OF THE ENEMY. THE SECOND DAY'S BATTLE.HILL'S CORPS BROKEN.-LONGSTREET COMES UP AND TURNS THE FORTUNES OF THE DAY.— HE IS SHOT DOWN BY HIS OWN MEN.-GEN. LEE OFFERS TO LEAD A CHARGE.-TOUCHING REMONSTRANCES OF THE MEN. THE CONFEDERATE ATTACK WITHDRAWN.-RESULTS OF THE DAY.-GORDON'S NIGHT ATTACK.—GRANT'S WHOLE ARMY ON THE VERGE OF ROUT.-HIS IMMENSE LOSSES.-MOVEMENTS OF THE TWO ARMIES TO SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE -MASTERLY PERFORMANCE OF LEE.-A MELANCHOLY EPISODE TO THE CAMPAIGN.SHERIDAN'S EXPEDITION.-DEATH OF GEN. STUART.-BATTLES OF SPOTTSYLVANIA COURTHOUSE.-COMBAT OF ANDERSON'S CORPS. THE FIGHTING ON THE 10TH MAY.-THE BATTLE ON THE 12TH.—A SALIENT OF THE CONFEDERATE LINE TAKEN.-GREAT SLAUGHTER OF THE ENEMY.-GRANT CONFESSES A FAILURE, AND WAITS SIX DAYS FOR REINFORCEMENTS. OPERATIONS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF RICHMOND.-GRANT'S INSTRUCTIONS TO BUTLER.-SIGEL'S COLUMN IN WESTERN VIRGINIA, ANOTHER PART OF THE COMBINATION.— BUTLER'S BOASTFUL DESPATCH.-HE DARES THE WHOLE OF LEE'S ARMY."—HE IS DEFEATED BY BEAUREGARD, AND HIS ARMY "BOTTLED UP."-OPERATIONS IN THE KANAWHA AND SHENANDOAH VALLEYS.-SIGNAL DEFEAT of Sigel.-GRANT'S COMBINATION BROKEN DOWN. HE MOVES TO THE NORTH ANNA RIVER.—IS FOILED AGAIN BY LEE. HE CROSSES THE PAMUNKEY RIVER.—“ THE PENINSULA MADE THE BATTLE-GROUND AGAIN.-TH SUM OF GLORY ACHIEVED BY LEE'S ARMY.-STATEMENT AS TO LEE'S REINFORCEMENTS.— THE FEDERAL HOST HELD AT BAY BY AN ARMY OF FIFTY THOUSAND MEN.-GASEOUS NONSENSE IN NEW YORK ABOUT GRANT'S GENERALSHIP.-HIS OPERATIONS IN MAY ABSURD AND CONTEMPTIBLE FAILURES.

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Ir is remarkable that at the opening of the great spring campaign of 1864, there should have simultaneously prevailed at Washington the opinion that the operations of the year would certainly restore the Union, and

at Richmond the opinion that the coming campaign was more likely to accomplish the independence of the Southern Confederacy than any preceding one of the war. These opinions were probably equally sincere and intelligent. Some special explanation must be found for a conflict of judgment so sharp and decided. The North trusted to its acumulation of men and material to make the fourth year of the war the triumphant one for its cause. The South, to a certain extent, had been encouraged by the series of successes we have remarked in the first months of this year; but this animation is not sufficient to account for the large measure of expectation and confidence with which she entered upon the dominant campaign of 1864. There was a special occasion of hope and reassurance.

Despite the little benefit, beyond verbal assistance, which the Confederate cause had derived from the Democratic party in the North, and despite the losses of that party in the elections of 1863, it was observed, in the spring of 1864, that it was beginning to raise a peace platform for the next Presidential election. That critical election was the point of a new prospect for the South. It was evident that there was a serious impatience in the North at the prolongation of the war; and it was probable that if the South could maintain the status quo through another campaign, and put before the North the prospect of another and indefinite term of hostilities, the present rulers at Washington would be discredited, the Democratic party get into power, and the Northern public be persuaded to accept as the conclusion of the war some favourable treaty, league, or other terms short of an actual restoration of the Union. It was said, with reason, in Richmond, that such was Northern impatience that the question of the war had simply become one of endurance on the part of the South; that even without positive victories in the field, and merely by securing negative results in the ensuing campaign, the Democratic party would be able to overthrow the Administration at Washington, and to open negotiations with Richmond as between government and government.

How seriously this argument was entertained in Richmond, may be understood from the fact that, simultaneously with the opening of the campaign in Virginia, President Davis prepared a mission to open communication with the Democratic party in the North, and to conduct in pace with the military campaign whatever political negotiation might be practicable in the North. The commissioners entrusted with this intrigue were Messrs. Thompson, of Mississippi, Holcombe, of Virginia, and Clay, of Alabama; and they were to proceed to a convenient place on the Northern frontier, and use whatever political opportunities the military events of the war might develop. They ran the blockade at Wilmington on the night of the day that the first gun on the Rapidan opened the momentous campaign of 1864.

The bloody drama of the war was to recommence on the banks of this

GEN. GRANT, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

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stream, where Gen. Lee's army had been stationed during the winter. On the Federal side a new and important actor was to appear on the scene. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who had had a long run of success in the West, had been appointed lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of all the Federal forces, and was now to answer the expectation of his admirers by a campaign in Virginia and the repetition of the enterprise upon the Confederate capital. The Richmond journals complimented him as a "man of far more energy and ability than any that had yet commanded the Army of the Potomac," but "his performances would bear no comparison whatever to those of Gen. Lee."

The new Federal commander in Virginia was one of the most remarkable accidents of the war. That a man without any marked ability, certainly without genius, without fortune, without influence, should attain the position of leader of all the Federal armies, and stand the most conspicuous person on that side of the war, is a phenomenon which would be inexplicable among any other people than the sensational and coarse mobs of admiration in the North. Gen. Grant's name was coupled with success; and this circumstance alone, without regard to merit of personal agency, without reference to any display of mental quality in the event, was sufficient to fix him in the admiration of the Northern public. It mattered not that Grant had illustrated no genius; it mattered not that he had smothered Fort Donelson by numbers; it mattered not that he had succeeded at Vicksburg through the glaring incompetency of a Confederate commander, and by the weight of eighty thousand men against twenty odd thousand; the North was prepared to worship him, without distinguishing between accident and achievement, and to entitle him the hero of the war.

It is a curious commentary on the justice of popular judgment, that while Grant was thus elevated to power and fame, the man who rescued him at Perryville and again at Shiloh, and whose heroism and genius had saved there the consequences of his stupidity, should be languishing in obscurity. This man was Gen. Buell. It was he who had contributed. most to Grant's success, and whose masterly manœuvres had done more to reclaim the Mississippi Valley for the Federals than any other commander, and who now had been sacrificed to the spirit of political intrigue. At a time when popular passion clamoured for the desolation of the South, Gen. Buell persisted, with a firmness rarer and more admirable even than he exhibited in the crisis of battle, in conducting the war on the principles of humanity; and by this noble moderation he incurred the displeasure of the faction that controlled the Government at Washington. The Radicals waged a war of extermination; but he proposed, with the sagacity of a statesman, to conciliate the good will of the South, while he overcame its resistance by an exertion of physical force. His system was too refined

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