Duane Schultz Book (the Dahlgren Term Paper

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Meade replied (p. 189) that "...neither the United States Government, myself, nor General Kilpatrick authorized, sanctioned, or approved the burning of the city of Richmond and the killing of Mr. Davis..."

Subsequent chapters in Schultz's book deal with the complications of retrieving Dahlgren's body and giving it a proper burial in the north, and with an ill-fated attempt by the Confederates to create chaos and draw blood in northern cities (Chicago among them) by sending disguised mercenaries down from Canada.

But Chapter 22 ("Desperate Measures: Who Wrote the Dahlgren Papers?") is loaded with Schultz's own beliefs and the views of others as regards the legitimacy of the papers. The people in the south believed the papers were real, and those in the north chose to believe the opposite. On pages 242-245 Schultz reprints what he asserts are the actual orders that Dahlgren was carrying with him. Back and forth, back and forth the evidence and the arguments go in this chapter. What is a reader to believe?

As to the reception of Schultz's book by other scholars and critics, not all reviews are glowing. James O. Hall writes that "...there are many nagging errors of fact in Schultz's book." Among those flaws, Hall insists, is Schultz's apparent flip-flop on the credibility of Dahlgren's papers. "At first Schultz seems to accept the authenticity of the wording...as published in the Richmond newspapers," Hall writes. "Then he switches to a belief that the Confederates forged substitute documents with inflammatory language in order to justify a campaign of terror against the north."

And in asserting that the papers were a forgery, "Schultz completely missed the point - chronology," Hall continues.

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The writer goes on to take readers through the window of time from the moment General Lee saw the papers, President Davis saw them, and the bottom line for Hall is that "there was not enough intervening time for a sophisticated forgery to be concocted"; hence there "was no forgery," Hall concludes. Moreover, Hall generalizes that Schultz's book "...leaves the flavor of having been compiled from the work of others, rather than written in an organized fashion." This writer - having read the book carefully - disagrees with Hall's assertion but sometimes critics take positions just for the sake of seeming to be informed and literate.

Another critic, Richard Mullen, takes issue with Schultz's objectivity: "...The horrible suffering of Northern prisoners is recounted in great detail, while the equally dreadful sufferings of Southern prisoners is not referred to..." Mullen goes on to claim that Schultz "offers no proof" for his assertions that the Dahlgren papers were forgeries, and Mullen is upset that Schultz presents "...the usual reverential obeisance to Lincoln and the usual carping assessment of President Davis."

In conclusion, it is unlikely there will be definitive proof presented to verify beyond any shadow of a doubt either point-of-view regarding the Dahlgren papers. But perhaps what is just as important is that by reading books like Shultz's and by studying all accounts of the Civil War, students and scholars will more informed about U.S. history, and that in itself is a positive thing.

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