At Ellyson’s Mill, down the Chickahominy, to Cold Harbor, at Fair Oaks, McClellan had infantry forces practically covering the entire territory which Stuart must pass. He traveled around the Federal army one hundred and thirty miles, and at no point of his whole journey was he removed from some Federal force as much as five miles. With his small command, at several places he was less than eight miles from large infantry commands. The inexperience of the Federal cavalry was one of Stuart’s chiefest aids in carrying out his splendid conception of this brilliant march. Two years later it would have been impossible even for Stuart, with his seasoned and trained soldiers, to have made such a movement. Stuart had knowledge of the men who would oppose him, and particularly of the cavalrymen who would pursue him, and this made him calmer and more confident than he would otherwise have been. No enemy came. The artillery was saved. United on the south side of the stream, their delivery from such imminent danger gave them renewed and enlarged confidence. They did not know what was ahead. The past was a sure guarantee of the future. Hitherto they had come in safety, and they confidently believed that fate would still be kind and helpful. The very uncertainty of what might at any moment appear to prevent their escape or impede their progress made them brave and cheerful. They rode swiftly along the road which might at any moment prove to be thronged with vigilant foes. The close call at the river, their triumph over apparently unsurmountable difficulties, made them complacent and contented. They pitied their weary and hungry beasts, and took little account of what privations they themselves had endured, or from what great danger they had so fortunately been delivered. General Stuart might now breathe easier, but he could not yet breathe freely. On the James River, along the banks of which he must pass on his route to Richmond, were Federal gunboats; and Hooker, from White Oak Swamps, five miles from the only course that Stuart could follow, could within a couple of hours, under forced marches, place infantry in the front. There was no time for rest or food; a splendid exploit, a magnificent expedition, was now nearing completion, and no appeal of tired nature could find response in the heart of the gallant leader. With marvelous genius he had brought his men out of difficulties that seemed unsurmountable, and so riding and riding and riding through the long hours of the night and the day, with ever-watchful eyes and ever-increasing vigilance, he pursued his journey to reach the place from which, four days before, he had set out upon what was then the greatest cavalry expedition of the war. He had lost one soldier, but he was a soldier worthy of any cause. Captain Latane’s burial by lovely Southern women, with the assistance of a faithful slave, has become one of the most pathetic incidents of the war. Aided only by the faithful negro, to whom freedom had no charms when associated with the abandonment of those he had served and loved, they dug a grave, folded his pale, brave hands over his stilled heart, and alone and without the protection of the men they loved, they read the burial service for the dead and committed the dust of the young patriot to the care of the God they truly and sincerely worshipped.
The Burial of Captain Latane
A brother bore his body from the field
And gave it unto strangers’ hands, that closed
The calm blue eyes on earth forever closed,
And tenderly the slender limbs composed.
Strangers, yet sisters, who, with Mary’s love,
Sat by the open tomb, and weeping, looked above.
A little child strewed roses on his bier,
Pale roses, not more stainless than his soul,