The accounting of events in Richmond on March 4, as already narrated, covers virtually every minute of that busy afternoon and evening–the papers being passed from Pollard to Fitzhugh Lee, from Lee to President Davis, from Davis to the War Department, from the department back to Davis and then back to the department, and finally the gathering of editors to receive their copies of the Dahlgren papers for publication. Each step in the sequence produced discussion and required a detailed briefing on the papers and the circumstances of their capture. Credible witnesses document each step. It is inconceivable that in those few hours, amid hectic circumstances, a secret plot to exploit the papers could have been hatched, the many necessary decisions made, special stationery printed, expert copyists located, the forged papers properly aged, and, finally, a cover story concocted and promulgated. (A similar forgery at breakneck speed would have been required for the pocket notebook, which reached Richmond on March 31 and was in print the next day.) Thus, the charge of forgery must be dismissed out of hand on this single count: It was literally impossible for the Confederates to have carried it off for lack of time.²⁶

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Last and certainly not least, a string of witnesses to the Dahlgren papers existed who would have had to have been corrupted into buying the new story of arson and pillage and murder–starting with Fitzhugh Lee, the commanding general’s nephew, and extending down the chain of command to Colonel Beale, Lieutenant Pollard, the Reverend Bagby, and teacher Edward Halbach. Each of these men went on record swearing that the papers taken from Colonel Dahlgren’s body that they read were the same papers printed in Richmond’s newspapers on March 5. That is hardly a cast of conspirators likely to universally bear false witness. In addition, such a deception would not have worked unless numbers of people who served in the Confederacy’s executive office and the War Department agreed to swear to eternal silence, an implausibility to say the least.

In order to finally close the case, however, it is necessary to dispose of certain peripheral evidences of alleged forgery, as set forth by Duane Schultz in The Dahlgren Affair. This is quickly done.

Unaware of the BMI’s role in the raid, Schultz labels as secondhand the testimony of John McEntee and John Babcock.²⁷ Theirs was, in fact, firsthand testimony by eyewitnesses of solid reputation who had close connections with Dahlgren before and during the operation. In the case of McEntee, no one in the raiding party was in a better position to know Dahlgren’s secret agenda.

Shultz writes that it was significant that Dahlgren’s second in command and other subordinates testified that they were not told in advance of any secret agenda for the raid. An obvious inference, reading Kilpatrick’s admission that he saw Dahlgren’s address before the raid, is that Kill-Cavalry’s stricture stopped Dahlgren from delivering the address to his men. It is equally obvious that thereafter Dahlgren operated on a need-to-know basis. Until Richmond was entered and the prisoners released, nothing needed to be said about arson and murder, if for no other reason than the destructive impact the orders would surely have had on morale. It is safe to say that these troopers, Regulars and volunteers alike, had not enlisted to be assassins.

In any case, the released and maddened prisoners were to carry out the heinous acts, not the raiders. Thus Dahlgren’s failure to inform his officers of his plans in advance was not in the least an indication that those plans were forgeries. It was perfectly proper for him to inform John McEntee, however, for McEntee and his BMI intelligence team were there to serve as guides once Richmond was entered; Dahlgren was aware they knew where to find Jefferson Davis and his cabinet.²⁸

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