The Washington times., 1911-06-24

Nu faring who had been sent
V from the North to cooperate,
outside the city. with Grigg in
his great plot? What Of Uric Dahl
gren and his movement against Belle
Isle?
Before moonrise of the evening Of
February 2S, Dahlgrens force, 400 vet
eran troopers, picked for the most dar-
ing ride ever attempted by Federal cav
airy, had ridden out of Stevensburg and
reached Elys Ford, on the Rapidan: A
detail from the Fifth New York. led by
Lieutenant Merritt and Hogan, the
prised and captured the entire Confed-
crate picket there, sixteen men OF
Cobb's Legion Cavalry under Captain
Young. No alarm reached the enemy
until twelve hours thereafter.
Once successfully across the Rapidan
Dahlgren sent back word to General
Fitzpatrick, who followed him with 3'VOO
cavalry and Ransom's siX-gun battery
OF horse artillery. But already Colonel
>Dahlgren had pressed on through Chan
cellorsville and vanished into the VIII
derness. He had opened the way for
kilpatrick Thenceforth their paths lay
wide apart. 1t was Kilpatrick's strong
column which was to make a telnt
against the northern works and engross
attention, while Dahlgrens small force
struck the real blow.
BY 8 o'clock that night Dahlgren had
brought his 400 men safe through the
dismal Wilderness to Spottsylvania,
we'll around Lees right flank. Down
the street of the sleeping hamlet they
rode at a steady trot, compact, silent
save for a muttered command now and
then.
out of the dark they swept, jog-jog.
Clink-clink. Jingle Jingle, and rode on
phIegmaticaliy into the dark again,
bound upon their great emprise. Un-
der them sounded a rolling rumble OF
iron hoofs on the dirt road; over them a
thick dust-cloud hovered.
Alarmed citizens who sprang from
warm beds to windows stared out upon
the dense, shadowy current of horse
men flowing past amid hundreds or toss
ing names and stretched equine muz-
zles pokinE southwark through the
night. Black against the low, yellow
moon futtered a few guidons on slant
led horses and rocked the dim shapes
OF two covered wagons. in one of which
a lan:Srn murkily swung.
Straight into the heart of The enemy's
troopers rode to the music of thudding
country the four hundred and sixty
hoofs and clanking sabers and creaking
saddles. That bold dash has been
quite forgotten now. like the brave
among dry official records to learn of
the rush into Frederickshall, where
Lees reserve artillery was parked; OF
the sweeping off of officers and men Of
the brief pause at Bumpass Station to
cut the telegraph wires and tear up
the railroad track, and Of the narrow
escape the train had on which Gen.
Lee was.
Nor is this chronicle concerned with
the fortitude of that dreary plodding.
nile after mile, hour after hour, for a
da' and a night, through torrents of
rain and over wretched roads of Vir-
RInia mud: nor with the crossing
the South Anna on the second night
at Turkey Creek Ford. while the black
heavens were rent by strange and un-
seasonable flashes of lightning. Enough
that the long postponed expedition had
started a day too late at last; the del
uge of spring rains and freshets burst
upon them in the midst of their prog
ress.
After enormous exertion of horses and
men, after an almost continuous ride Of
thirty-six hours through storm and fog
and night and mud and swollen streams
pressing on the goal with an indom-
table fire and endurance that won re-
luctant praise from lips of hostile CEN
of March, some three hundred weary
men spurred their jaded and mud
splashed horses down the hillside to
Dover's Mills, on the north bank Of
promised there would be found a ford
nearer the capital than Goochland. Be-
fore their dismayed eyes rolled the wide
food of the river, turgid from rains,
And as Uric Dahlgren. rising M his
spattered stirrups, stared out over that
broad torrent at the inaccessible south
ern shore where his hope of glory lay,
his heart sank within him.
There was no ford there. The negro
had lied.
What next? Only to reioin Fitzpatrick,
who was skirmishing against the city's
northern entrenchments and eagerly lis
tening for sounds of Grigg's uprising.
Naught else remained to do. One great
strategic point of the campaign. the
capture of Belle Isle and surprise OF
the city from the rear, had been lost.
But IT, Grigg nevertheless did his part
boldly, success might yet crown their
i6bors.
Dahlgren led his column down the
Westham Plank road toward Richmond.
It was necessary to so warily and
keep scouts pushed out well to the
front, for. at every mile the perils OF
his position increased; Kilpatrick.ss
feint must by this time have drawn all
available forces of the enemy to the
northern works. At daybreak: too:
with a hundred men down the canal to
cover and conceal the crossing of the |
others to the south shore. and now this
precaution recoiled upon himself, for
Mitchell, obeying instructions, destroy
ed locks, mills, canal boats. and sup |
plies, and the pillars of smoke that |
blackened the heavens precluded all
doubt that the presence of Federal |
Indeed, Richmond was full of the wild
est rumors.
Through rain and ever-deepening mud |
the exhausted horses splashed and trudg-
ed. In the ranks hardly a word arose;
the men moved on with furled guidons
and their sheathed sabers covered bv
their overcoat capes; they were chilled
and depressed by the gloomy weather,
the hardships, and loss Of sleep they
had endured, and the disaster at Do
ver's Mills. Yet they followed gladly
and would follow to the end, for in
Young Uric Dahlren was that name
less something which wins mems de-
votion. Under the slender youths hand
some face and courteous manners lay
an instinct of stern sef-sa crifce that
called forth a kindred strain in those
who looked to him for leadership in
the foray and charge.
Toward the middle Of the afternoon
when they had come within eight miles