March 5, 1864 was the day the Civil War changed to become what the Richmond Examiner called "a war of extermination, of indiscriminate slaughter and plunder." It changed because of a few sheets of paper found on a muddy trail outside of Richmond. Their legacy was a new and terrible style of warfare. The story begins with a daring cavalry raid to free thousands of Union prisoners held under desperate conditions in Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy. The raid fails, and the Union commander -- 21-year-old Ulric Dahlgren, a one-legged colonel, hero, and friend of Abraham Lincoln's -- is killed. On Dahlgren's body are found orders purportedly instructing his men to find and execute Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Confederate cabinet. - Jacket flap.