"Hearing that a force had marched toward Falling Waters, General Kilpatrick ordered an advance to that place. Through some mistake, only one brigade, that of General Custer, obeyed the order. When within less than a mile of Falling Water the enemy was found in great numbers and strongly entrenched behind a dozen crescent-shaped earthworks. The Sixth Michigan Cavalry was in advance. They did not wait for orders, but one squadron, Companies C and D, under Captain Boyce (who was killed), with Companies B and F, led by Major Webber (who was killed), made the charge, capturing the works and defenders. It was a fearful struggle, the rebels fighting like demons. Of the no men engaged on our side, but 30 escaped uninjured. This is cavalry fighting, the superior of which the world never saw."
On this campaign our regiment had a strenuous time of it. For seventeen days and nights we did not unsaddle our horses except to readjust the saddle-blankets.
The next trouble we had was when we crossed the Potomac into Virginia in the rear of Lee's army and encountered Stuart's cavalry at Snicker's Gap, on July 19. The charge was simultaneous and I came near "passing in my checks," for I was knocked from my horse in the charge and was run over by half our regiment. I was stunned and badly bruised, but not cut. When I came to I was glad to find that my sore head was still on my shoulders. I was soon mounted, and our regiment went into camp.
We remained there next day awaiting rations, and, while riding from the quartermaster's tent to my company, I crossed a field that was overgrown with weeds and briers and ran against a gray granite slab. I dismounted, and pulling the briers aside, I saw that it was a gravestone. The inscription stated the man's name and age, which I have forgotten; the date of his death at an advanced age, in 1786, and concluded with this quaint inscription:
"Man, as you are passing by,
As you are now, so once was I;
As I am now, so you must be;
Turn to God and follow me."
This affected me deeply. The thought occurred to me that when in life (for he died but three years after the Revolution) how little he expected that the time would come when his beautiful domain and his bright sunny Southland would be devastated and laid waste by an invading army of his own countrymen!
From June 30 to September 21, 1863, our regiment participated in seventeen skirmishes and battles. On September 14, at Culpeper Court House, General Custer was wounded and the command of the brigade devolved upon Colonel Sawyer of the First Vermont Cavalry, which was brigaded with us at the time.
On taking command Sawyer seemed to think that the war had been going on long enough, and he decided to end it at once. Like Pope, his headquarters were in the saddle. "Up and at them" was his motto. He wasn't, as yet, even a brigadier by brevet, but visions of the lone star on his shoulders, I presume, took possession of him. "Dismount and fight on foot!" was the ringing order from the Colonel on September 21, at Liberty Mills, on the Rapidan, and, as had been my habit, I snapped my horse to a set of fours of led horses, and borrowing the gun and cartridge-box of the soldier in charge of the horses, I joined my company commanded by Capt. M. D. Birge. We crossed the bridge and deployed in a cornfield on the left of the road. I was on the extreme left, and paid very little attention to the regular line, as I was an independent skirmisher; but as soon as I found that more than twenty of us were separated from the line by drifting into an open ravine for better protection, I was a trifle tamer than when I started out a half hour previous. On the right the corn was cut and stood in shocks, and while the line advanced up the ravine I ascended the ridge, keeping under cover as well as I could behind the corn shocks. When I reached the top of the elevation I was completely staggered to see several hundred mounted Confederates advancing toward us, platoon front, as if on parade. There was no time to lose, for the lead was crashing through the shock that I was behind, at a fearful rate, and how I escaped with only a rip in my blouse near my left elbow is more than I shall ever know. I had possibly three hundred yards to run to reach the boys, now under command of Lieutenant Hoyt. I safely got where they were without being hit, but the time I made in doing so would have been creditable to the fleetest jack- rabbit.
I reported the danger we were in. All this time a mounted staff-officer a few hundred yards back of us was shouting himself hoarse, "Advance, men, advance!" "I cannot fall back when ordered to advance," said Hoyt. "Lieutenant, if you do not we are lost," was my reply. The soldier will at once realize the embarrassment of my position in advising a retreat. It savors so much of the "white feather." It is always well enough for the inferior to advise a forward movement, even though the superior ignores the advice, but it is a ticklish thing to advise retreat — even the word "retreat" is dangerous. I knew the danger, because I saw it. The ground was undulating, and neither Lieutenant Hoyt nor the frantic staff-officer could see the advancing body of Confederates. "We will be surrounded and scooped up in less than five minutes," said I. "I cannot help it," replied Hoyt, "I must obey orders. Forward!"
We advanced perhaps a dozen rods, when the enemy was upon us. A Minie ball struck Hoyt in the shoulder and he was down. The charge followed. We received no more bellowing orders from the elegantly attired staff-officer. He at once adopted Falstaff's advice about "discretion being the better part of valor," and the skirts of his beautiful dress-coat would have made tails for a kite. The speed with which he reached a safe rear was of the fleetest. I can imagine his report to Colonel Sawyer, commanding brigade. It ran something like this: "They were captured because they did not obey my orders. I remained as long as possible, but was obliged to fall back."
I tried to get Hoyt away, but he was so badly hurt that he begged to be left on the field. I then gave orders to our men to fall back as quickly as possible to the river. We all started on the run down the ravine. I certainly out-ran them, for I was the only one that reached the stream. I was pretty fleet of foot myself in those days. The Confederates were busy picking up our boys, and I think for a moment they lost sight of me. I crossed the river and hid in the tall grass, and from where I lay I could see our boys being marched up the hill through the cornfield under guard.
While I do not know it for certain, yet I am, and always have been, satisfied that at about the time Lieutenant Hoyt was hit the Confederate officer in command gave the order to cease firing. Our miserable little handful of men was as good as captured at any time after the Confederate advance had reached the brow of the hill, and here is a marked refutation of the oft-repeated "needless rebel cruelty." We were engaged in an open fight, and they could have wiped us off the face of the earth at any time after getting over the hill, for they were upon us. I was repeatedly ordered to halt after getting 300 or 400 feet start, and could easily have been shot down before I reached the river; but I didn't have time to halt or to obey orders. According to all the rules of war they were perfectly justified in killing me when I failed to stop.
This magnanimous trait is particularly conspicuous in the Southern soldier. He will fight, day or night, against superior odds, but on the other hand, when the advantage is greatly in his favor, he views the situation in altogether a different light. It seems as if the spirit of magnanimity overcomes him.
It always was, always has been, and always will be a matter of profound wonderment why Beauregard and Johnston did not march upon Washington during the night of July 21-22, 1861. All that they had to do was to reach out and take the city.
But the Southerners did not have a monopoly altogether in chivalrous conduct toward the defeated. When Pickett made that awful charge on the Union lines at Gettysburg, and when his brave men were being mown down, falling, wavering, and about to fall back, knowing that they had failed, a young beardless Confederate color-bearer, in advance of the line, looking to the right and left and seeing his comrades reeling, dropping, and wavering, deliberately raised the colors high in the air and jabbed the staff into the ground. He stepped back a pace or two, straightened himself like an adjutant on parade, and seemed to say, "I think that I might as well die here," and folded his arms. The smoke cleared away. Firing had not ceased however. "Don't kill that boy! Don't fire at that boy!" yelled Col. P. P. Brown, of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York Regiment.
The young hero was not 150 feet from the Union line. His look of despair gave place to a smile. He put his hand to his cap in salute and the Union men cheered. Taking the colors he turned about and slowly