Project Update

If you’re not saving it for the book, what’s your conclusion on the papers?

Legit or not?

I tend to think they are legit, and the trail probably leads back to Stanton, but I have not done nearly as much research on the matter as you.

Thanks. I’m glad it helped.

I’m surprised, however, that Dahlgren’s obit wasn’t to be found in other works referencing the man. Tell me, did you notice a certain reluctance to cover Dahlgren in later works? Certainly in the contemporary writings I read, he was very well thought of and his death greatly mourned. Indeed, there was much consternation concerning the treatment of his body by the Confederates and a general condemnation of their actions.

Do you find that later writers were ambiguous about the young man and that is perhaps why coverage of his short life is so lacking? After all, other equally young and courageous men fought and died in the war and they seem to lack no positive coverage Consider Col. Charles R. Lowell who, despite somewhat negative comments about his abilities as a commander (NOT his character) by those who served under him, was lionized in at least one biography and certainly well spoken of by writers covering the war both contemporary and modern. Yet, Lowell, like young Dahlgren, died during the war and certainly not nearly so spectacularly.

Furthermore, he, Lowell, didn’t even function in a theater of the war considered ‘glorious’. Rather, he was commanded to chase ‘guerrillas, horsethieves and ‘outlaws’, a job (as Lowell himself put it) for a policeman rather than a soldier. So why then is Lowell relatively well covered while Dahlgren – who came from a much more prominent military family and moved in the best of circles – so ignored? Do you think it reflects a later assessment by historians and writers of the whole ‘plot’ business and (not to sound like a conspiracy theorist) a desire to let that whole thing die of neglect?

Dahlgren had EVERYTHING that should have marked him for simply TONS of coverage. He was handsome, young, brave, well born and consorted with the ‘movers and shakers’ of the time. Furthermore, he died young in a hail of bullets during a daring raid after which his body was handled anything but deferentially but was eventually returned to his grieving father, the famous Admiral Dahlgren. Even from the point of view of a ‘good yarn’, Dahlgren’s story should be one of the best know of the war. Instead, he gets considerably less interest than many men of his period who had NONE of these ‘markers’ of fame. I find this a bit mystifying myself. Hopefully, your work may shed at least SOME light on this – although perhaps you are not going to delve into the matter as it takes place posthumously.

Val

Excellent. I have just obtained another couple of papers from around that time. I’ll see if there is anything there.

Still, I’m sure I mentioned (as you might have noticed) that CONTEMPORARY newspapers carried a great deal about the man, but he doesn’t seem to be well covered in later civil war writings. Yet it would seem that the ‘marks’ I noted should have secured him sufficient fame (or notoriety) to have made him a subject of more interest than apparently has been the case.

V.