Dahlgren's Raid

Col. Ulric Dahlgren's Union cavalry passed through this area late in the evening of 1 March 1864 before defeating the Richmond Armory Battalion at the Battle of Green's Farm, just south on Three Chopt Road. Dahlgren led his command toward Richmond on the Westham Plank Road (now Cary Street Road) for about half a mile. At Hicks's Farm, five miles from Capitol Square, about 420 of his cavalrymen encountered the local defense troops of the Departmental Battalion and the remnants of the Armory Battalion. After a brief skirmish in the darkness during a rain, snow, and sleet storm, Dahlgren retreated and tried to rejoin Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick's force on Brook Road. Dahlgren was killed in King and Queen County the next day.