The February 28 - March 3, 1864 Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid on Richmond had the lofty goal of quickly penetrating deep behind Confederate lines, capturing the capital and freeing the thousands of Union prisoners languishing at the Belle Isle and Libby prisons. Along the way, the raiders would wreak havoc on bridges, railroads, mills and the James River and Kanawha Canal. But it would be its most sinister directives, written orders that enjoined the troopers to burn the city and kill Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, that would make the failed operation infamous. The raid has been covered in book form before by Virgil Carrington Jones and Duane Schultz, as well as in the biographies of the main actors, but Bruce Venter's Kill Jeff Davis is the deepest dive into the available primary sources and clearly the most complete, scholarly, balanced and up to date treatment.  Civil War Books and Authors

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