Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Hampton had undertaken to intercept Sheridan’s march. He had out-marched him. He had done in two days that which had taken Sheridan three, and his men were as fresh and bright as those of Sheridan. The journey had told on man and beast, but they had both become used to the severest toil, and were willing and ready for any fray that would pass that way.

Some picket firing was heard, but the Federals, not yet realizing that Hampton was in their front and on their flank, supposed that the desultory shots were from the guns of raw militia who had pressed forward with more vigor than discretion.

Sheridan and his most dashing lieutenant, General Custer, no sooner heard heavy firing than they comprehended the real situation. They understood that the Confederates had followed them in heavy force, that the clash would be serious, and that hard fighting was at hand, and that if they were to continue their march down the valley, they must discomfit the men who were now assailing their lines and drive them out of their path. The Federals began to fight back with spirit. It did not take them long to get ready for the grave task that was forced upon them. While the Confederates were charging, the men in blue were charging, too, and by good luck and by boldness Custer passed between Fitzhugh Lee and Hampton’s two divisions and was at the Confederate rear before anybody caught on to this serious condition. When General Hampton, guided by the sound of firing, rushed to the spot, he found that Custer was vigorously assailing his rear. Custer had taken many of his caissons and wagons and led horses, and he felt that victory was already within his grasp. In this emergency, Rosser, who could always be depended upon for a fierce, impetuous charge, was ordered to attack Custer. In a few moments the crash of charging horses, the roll of revolver firing, and the cuts of sabres demonstrated to Custer’s men that the people they were fighting were not militia, but foemen worthy of their steel. Nearly all that Custer had captured was retaken, and an entire regiment made prisoners. Rosser fell wounded. The enemy, finding the opportunity, pressed hard upon Butler’s and Young’s brigades. The result of the battle hung in the balance. A mistake on either side would be fatal. Hampton’s presence was always an inspiration, and he rode from place to place on every part of the field. Outnumbered, Hampton’s division under Lee was sorely pressed, and General Fitzhugh Lee’s division was cut off and became so thoroughly separated that it could be of no help or support for twenty-four hours.

Sheridan’s forces were now turned with severe impact upon Hampton’s division, and gradually it was forced back toward Gordonsville, but still protected that place and Charlottesville. Hampton quickly took advantage of a railroad embankment, dismounted his men and put them behind it, and against this, Sheridan, all during the afternoon of the 10th, in vain hurled his forces. When the sun rose on the morning of the 11th, Hampton, his men, his artillery and his horses were still in position. Sheridan, strangely enough, waited until three o’clock in the afternoon. By this he lost his chance to win. Had he rushed the Confederate line with a real impetuous assault he would have broken it. He waited without a good reason. Fitzhugh Lee, with two-fifths of Hampton’s men, was marching to avoid Federal interruption, and when he came, Hampton’s heart was gladdened and his hopes lifted high. Fitzhugh Lee coming once more united the Confederates, and now all of Hampton’s men faced all of Sheridan’s men with Hampton protected by the railroad embankment. When this barrier, as the battle front was lengthened, failed, fence rails were pressed into service and such earth as the men could throw up with their hands and plates and cups reinforced the rails. So far little had been done or accomplished, and Sheridan moved up his men close to the Confederate lines. They had plenty of ammunition, and the roar from the constant discharge of the magazine rifles made a terrific din. Again and again Sheridan’s men with supreme courage assailed the Confederate breastworks, but each time they left their dead and wounded and fell back from the scenes of slaughter. Chew and Hart, with their artillery, poured deadliest discharges into the Federal columns. At one time General M. C. Butler’s men exhausted their ammunition. It looked as if all was lost. When despair seemed to fill every heart in this brave command, an ammunition wagon, with the horses lashed to a gallop, came dashing by, and the occupants of the wagon flung out from its sides loose handfuls of cartridges, and these the men joyously seized and returned to the fray. Seven times Sheridan’s men advanced to the charge, and seven times they recoiled from the tremendous fire that greeted them from the Confederate lines. At the moment of the last assault a Confederate shell exploded a Federal caisson. Somebody realized that this was the psychological moment, and from over the breastworks the Confederates, moved by instinct and valor, charged with the speed of racers upon the Federal line. The rebel yell was heard from end to end, and the Federal forces, disheartened by their many failures, were swept away by the unexpected and impetuous advance of Hampton’s soldiers. The turning point had come. The Confederates seized their opportunity and the battle was won.

From three o’clock in the afternoon until ten o’clock at night the contest had raged, and the record showed that it was a fierce contest. Both sides had dismounted. On the ground they were assailing each other with greatest energy and persistence. The Confederates had the best of position, but the Federals had the most of men. All through the afternoon and in the darkness of night neither side was willing to give up the struggle. The stars came out with feeble light to relieve the gloom and shadows that overspread the wreck and suffering of the battlefield. Naught could stay the surging tide of war, and in the darkness, as in the light, these soldiers continued to wage the contest. There was no time to bear away the dead or relieve the wounded. Orders had been given by General Hampton to Fitzhugh Lee for rapid and fierce pursuit, and to intervene between Sheridan and Carpenter’s Ford on the North Anna River, at which he had crossed the day before; but the orders failed or were not executed and Sheridan marched away, leaving the unfortunate wounded behind, and returned by the same road over which he had come. He left in the hands of the men of the South six hundred and ninety-five prisoners and one hundred and twenty-five wounded. Again was demonstrated the power of the single-firing guns. The Federals claim to have carried away more than five hundred wounded, but they abandoned their dead and a hundred and twenty-five wounded were left with Hampton.

Little time was allowed for expressions of humanity. The Confederates, with the possession of the battlefield, assumed thereby responsibility for the care of those whose misfortunes left them suffering and helpless in the fields and woods that had witnessed the harvest of death on the two days of the struggle. When the storm of battle had passed, Federal and Confederate wounded were placed in improvised hospitals constructed of flat cars, thence conveyed to some convenient hospital further south. The few people that were left in this war-stricken country brought such food as they could spare to feed Hampton and his men; but these, rising to the highest calls of humanity, hungry and thirsty themselves, willingly made an equal division of what had been brought with their wounded and captured foes. This was a splendid demonstration of the noble and generous instincts that ever dwell in the hearts of brave men and which quicken and expand under the influence of opportunity. The bitterness of a fratricidal war could not stay the exercise of benignity and mercy.

General Sheridan endeavored to mitigate the unfortunate results of this expedition upon which he had started with high and boastful hopes. He had promised so much and accomplished so little that it required no small genius and much of rhetorical skill to satisfy those who had sent him on so important a mission. He had his own choice of troopers. Those he took with him had shown that in any contest they were ready to give a good account of themselves. Equipped, armed and provided with all that money could bring, and brought to a high degree of discipline, and already fully proved as able to cope with their foes, General Sheridan had either to exaggerate the number of men under Hampton, magnify the difficulties he encountered or admit a complete defeat. He chose the former. He claimed that he had attacked the Confederates in fortifications. He reported that Hampton had been reinforced by infantry on the second day of the fight, when in fact there was no infantry closer than General Lee’s camps, eight miles from Richmond. The barren results of this expedition temporarily shook General Grant’s faith in General Sheridan’s capacity and fighting qualities, and this was only restored, when later, in the Valley and around Petersburg, General Sheridan repaired his shattered reputation, and with the experiences of another four months demonstrated that he was both a brilliant and aggressive cavalry leader.

He had hoped to do great damage to the railroad at Gordonsville and south to Staunton, and yet he only disturbed two hundred feet. General Torbert reported that the Confederates had a large brigade of mounted infantry armed with rifle muskets. A Federal prisoner had written in his diary on the last day of the fight—“Sunday, June 12th, ... fought on same ground and got whipped like the devil....” Anyhow, whatever may have been the results as figured in General Sheridan’s imagination, he made a night ride, crossed the North Anna River, and marched back to Cold Harbor, from whence he had come. For eight days Hampton was on one side of the river and Sheridan on the other. If Sheridan wanted to fight he had pontoon bridges and he had only to lay them and cross over. For at least a portion of the time the two cavalry commands were within sight of each other and now and then they exchanged shots. After fifteen days General Sheridan had gotten back to where he left Grant’s army, from whence he started out with such flattering hopes and alluring expectations. He now found that Grant had determined to abandon his summer line, cross the Chickahominy, ferry over the James River, and take up a position on its south bank, from whence the long siege of Petersburg would begin, and proceed by inches until it would culminate in the overthrow of the Confederacy.

General Hampton had a second chance at General Gregg at Nance’s Shop on the 24th of June, eleven days after the cessation of hostilities at Trevilian. He came close to making a complete rout of General Gregg’s forces. Attacking in the afternoon he harried his lines,—pursued him until eleven o’clock at night, and a short distance from Charles City Court House captured one hundred and fifty-seven prisoners. So sorely was General Gregg’s division handled in this affair that it required some time to recruit and mend up.

General Sheridan, in making his report, was bound by his backward march to express his regret at his inability to carry out his instructions. It was with much humiliation that he admitted failure. In the campaign Sheridan lost, according to Federal reports, more than fifteen hundred killed, wounded and taken prisoner, while General Hampton’s forces lost less than eight hundred. This Trevilian expedition was another test out of the spirit and power of Federal and Confederate cavalry of the armies in Northern Virginia. It demonstrated anew that the Confederate cavalry under Hampton was just as enterprising, as valiant, as enthusiastic and as brave and dauntless as when it fought under Stuart. Down to the very end the horsemen of the Army of Northern Virginia maintained their proud spirit and their indomitable will, and when the last call was made, when the lines at Petersburg had been broken, and when General Lee, in the vain hope of effecting a union with Johnston in Georgia, had turned his face west and reached Appomattox, there to be met with sad and appalling disaster, the cavalry was still ready and willing to fight and give valiant response to the last call that their country could make upon their fealty and their courage. Many of them marched into North Carolina and Georgia to make one more stand under the Stars and Bars, and once more offer their lives to win life for the Confederate Nation.