Kilgren Raid Analysis

With the outbreak of the Civil War, a war between free states and slave states, it is to be expected that hostility amongst one another will intensify through a series of events. The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid provoked more rage when the true intentions of the Union were revealed via the Dahlgren Papers. Proposed by Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick and approved by the President Abraham Lincoln and his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, the raid’s purpose was to liberate approximately 12,000 Union prisoners held captive in Richmond and in a prison camp on Belle Island on the James River. The raid was initiated on the evening of February.28,1864 and ended on March.3,1864. During the raid, complications emerged causing the operation to be a failure.
General George Meade was asked by the Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general if the assassination of President Davis was authorized by the United States Government. Meade then turned the investigation over to Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick replied to Meade saying that he wholeheartedly agreed with Dahlgren’s written orders except for the mention of assassination. “[...] he wrote Meade, ‘save as far as it speaks of exhorting the prisoners to destroy and burn the hateful city and kill the traitor Davis and his cabinet. All of this is false” (Aron 84). Kilpatrick also interviewed survivors from Dahlgren’s troops from the night of the raid, all urging no notice about the terroristic orders. In hindsight, whether or not if the orders were given to the troops, it does not necessarily mean the orders did not exist. In secrecy, Meade was suspicious of Kilpatrick's considering he did take everything in his power to get the raid initiated by the president and the secretary of war. “Indeed relying on Kilpatrick was, as historian Stephen Sears put it, ‘equivalent to ordering the fox to investigate losses in the henhouse.’ Kilpatrick, after all, was Dahlgren’s superior officer and may have given him the orders. If so, Kilpatrick had every reason to deny they were authentic” (Aron 85). Kilpatrick’s superiority status can affect the actions of Dahlgren and his soldiers. There is the underlying assumption that
“In late November 1865, Stanton ordered Francis Lieber, the keeper of captured Confederate records, to furnish him with everything relating to the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid. On December 1 of that year, Lieber complied, handing over to Stanton a packet of papers and correspondence from the Confederate archives that included material found on Dahlgren’s body, including his instructions, the address to his men, and his pocket notebook” (www.historynet.com). “Fourteen years later, Lieber asked for them back, so that he could include them in a multivolume collection of war records he was putting together. The War Department responded that they had no record of the papers” (Aron 86). It is highly suspicious as to what business Stanton had with the papers that he would not need to alert the War Department. In David Meyer’s, The Plot to Assassinate Jefferson Davis?, he quotes James O. Hall, a historian, who tediously examined the transaction of the papers between Lieber and Stanton. “Perhaps it is an uncharitable thought, but the suspicion lingers that Stanton consigned them to the fireplace in his office”(Meyer). Also on February 12, it is recorded that just Stanton, Lincoln and Kilpatrick had a meeting pertaining to the plan for the raid. There is a large possibility that the terms of Davis’ assassination were decided here in privacy (www.historynet.com). The only logistical explanation as to why Stanton needed