Who goes there?

by B. K. Benson

My glass was slung over my shoulder beneath the gum-blanket, with which I had been covered all night as a protection from the rain. I took nothing else with me except my canteen. I directed Jones to remain where he was, and if I should not return in one hour, to conclude that I was entangled with the enemy, and that I could not get away in time; that he must assume from my absence that the rebel right extended far, because if it did not I should return to him; in one hour, therefore, he must start to meet our advancing troops; in that case he was not to encumber himself with my horse; I might be able to get back to the spot later in the day. I added that I seriously doubted my ability to get back before the advance of the Union troops should reach the ground, and impressed upon Jones the necessity of communicating with General Morell before dispositions for attack had gone too far. He comprehended the situation, and promised to follow my instructions.

Again I crept up to the spot from which I had seen the vedette; he was yet there, still facing south. His line, therefore, stretched across the branch. I retired a hundred yards or more to a gully which favoured me, and crept to my left up the hill. At the top of the hill I entered thicker woods. I stood behind a tree, and looked and listened. Drums could be heard toward the north, and seemingly nearer than before; I thought I could hear the long roll, and feared that the Union advance was already known by the Confederates.

Now I got on my hands and knees, and began to crawl forward very slowly. My gum-blanket hindered me; I took it off, put my glass in it, folded and strapped it, and put it over my shoulder. I was already wet. Again I went forward slowly. Soon I saw another vedette, facing south. I retired, and made progress rapidly through the woods to my left; then I crawled up a long distance. I had hoped to be able to determine the right of the enemy's pickets and then return to Jones and send him with my report, while I should remain at the rendezvous to guide the troops when Jones should have succeeded in guiding them to me. But I had found the pickets posted in a very advantageous position for themselves, and a very difficult one for me; more than an hour had passed since I left Jones; he was already on his way. It took long for me to make a prudent approach. As soon as I could see one of the vedettes, I would retreat through the woods until I was out of danger; then I would go fifty or a hundred yards to my left, and approach, again on my hands and knees until I discovered a man, when I would retreat again, and so on alternately. At one place I saw the picket-line itself stretching across the top of an open hill, with the vedettes concealed, no doubt, in the hollow in front. I was compelled to go almost entirely around a field, taking a back track for a quarter of a mile, and then going forward again on the west side of the field.

About ten o'clock the rain ceased, and while I was thus helped in one respect, I was hindered also. The pickets would be more alert, and I felt compelled to keep at a greater distance from the line. I made another advance, and this time continued advancing, for to my gratification I found no extension of the picket-line in front of me. I thought at first that it had been thrown back here, and that I was now going along the western front.

To make sure, I turned to the right--to the east--and went perhaps three hundred yards without finding anything, and felt convinced that there was no western front to the rebel line. I continued to advance eastward, going straight toward the railroad. At length I had gone a quarter of a mile, and had found nothing.

Now I began to believe that the rebel picket-line had been withdrawn while I was going around the field, and I conjectured that the Confederates had become aware of the approach of our column, and had retreated, or else were concentrating to meet our advancing troops.

Suddenly I heard a cannon fire, seemingly a mile away, in a southeasterly direction.

For a clear understanding of the situation it would perhaps be well to state here that both Frank and Jones had reached the cavalry under General Emory, at the head of our column, and had reported to him as well as to General Morell; and that our column had advanced by the road we had left, had thrown out a skirmish-line which extended beyond the railroad, but not far enough, and had continued to advance until the enemy were felt.

The cannon which I had heard, and which continued to fire, were of Benson's battery of U.S. artillery, and this was the beginning of the battle of Hanover Court-House, so called.

At this time one of Branch's regiments--the Twenty-eighth North Carolina under Colonel Lane--was at Taliaferro's Mill at the head of Crump's Creek, on a road to the right of our advancing column, which had thus interposed, without knowing it, between the two bodies of Confederates. At the first warning of the Union advance, General Branch had formed his troops facing the east and southeast, and covering the Ashcake road, which runs in a sort of semicircle from the Hanover road to Ashland on the west, so that the attack of the Union forces against the main body of rebels merely forced them to give ground in the direction of Ashland. Lane, at Taliaferro's Mill, was left to work his way out, which he did later in the afternoon with considerable loss.