[XXXI.]
We camped below Richmond, and I obtained leave of absence to go to Boydton for a few days, and from Boydton I crossed over into North Carolina to make a visit to a friend who was staying there. The Roanoke River was so high that the ferryman was unwilling to cross; but by the payment of $250 in Confederate money I succeeded in inducing him to take me over. It was a foolish performance, as the chances were ten to one that we should not be able to make a landing on the other side. From North Carolina I then went to Stony Creek, where I was told that our division was. This little railroad station, which had looked when I first saw it, in 1862, as if it were not visited by ten persons in a month, was now a busy military post, several thousand Confederates being encamped around it. Finding that I had been misinformed, I hurried by a circuitous route to Richmond, the enemy having possession of the railroad between Stony Creek and Petersburg. I reported for duty just as the division was on the march from Richmond. Through Powhatan County we rode, and, as ours was the first large body of troops that had passed through that happy place, the scenes of the early months of the war were repeated, to the satisfaction and surprise of our men. Ladies came out to the roadside with cakes and sandwiches and milk, and our people enjoyed themselves thoroughly. It is true that there were rather more of us than even the hospitable people of Powhatan could accommodate. The ladies there were very much in the plight of a good woman to whose house I went in the first Maryland campaign. I rode up to ask for a glass of water, and, before I had said what I wanted, was told that I really could not get breakfast, as there was nothing left in the house. The kind soul told me that she had made up her mind, when she heard that General Lee’s army was coming, to give every one of his soldiers something to eat, and, when she had stripped the smoke-house bare, and used up every dust of meal, she was warned that only one division of the army had gone by. Then she gave up her generous purpose in something very much like despair.
This time we did not strike the enemy, as expected, and returned to Richmond, stopping for a day in Powhatan, at the house of Mr. Harris, the brother of Major Harris, who was Beauregard’s Engineer Officer at Charleston, and who planned the more important defences around that City. From Richmond we rode to Petersburg, and General Fitz Lee was placed in command of the cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, consisting of three divisions.
[XXXII.]
The end was now very near. On March 30th, 1865, we dined at Mrs. Cameron’s, in Petersburg, and rode out late in the evening to overtake the command, which had gone towards Five Forks. The greater part of the night we were in the saddle, and what rest I had was on a couple of fence rails in a corn field. It was raining heavily. Early in the morning of March 31, our line was formed at Five Forks, as it is called, a place where five roads meet. A blacksmith’s shop that was there furnished, when pulled down, excellent material for a breast-work. One of our servants came up and made some coffee for us, and those who know how hot poor coffee, in a tin cup, can be, will understand what our feelings were when the cavalry of the enemy drove in our pickets just as we were about to enjoy the refreshing draught. We did not wait for the cavalry, and we took our coffee with us. Later in the morning the enemy, supported by infantry, attacked us in force. Our men were fighting dismounted, and at first were driven back in some confusion. General Payne was severely wounded, and I had just time to shake hands with him as he was taken to the rear. I did not see him again until the next year, when he was living quietly at his own home, at Warrenton. It was very difficult to rally the men. For the moment they were completely demoralized. One fellow whom I halted as he was running to the rear, and whom I threatened to shoot if he did not stop, looked up in my face in the most astonished manner, and, raising his carbine at an angle of forty-five degrees, fired it in the air, or at the tops of the pines, and resumed his flight. It made me laugh, angry as I was. There was only one thing to do, and that was to order a charge all along the line. The bugles sounded, and the very men whom it had been impossible to stop a few minutes before turned and attacked the enemy with an impetuosity that bore everything before it. The difficulty was, indeed, to keep the men from going too far. Their blood was up; they were mortified that they should have been thrown into confusion; and there was much trouble in preventing them from running right in upon the main body of the enemy.
There was a pause now in the operations, and General Pickett had joined us with his division of infantry. My dear old friend, Willie Pegram, who was by this time Colonel of artillery, was there with a part of his battalion. It was a great happiness to me to clasp his true hand again. The next day he was slain—dying, as he had hoped and prayed that he might, when the last hope of the Confederacy was gone. This pure, sweet, brave man, a type of the unaffected Christian soldier, remained on his horse when the Federal infantry poured in over our works, and fell to the ground mortally wounded, at the very end of the fight. To Gordon McCabe, his Adjutant, who was with him then, he spoke his last words: “I have done what I could for my country, and now I turn to my God.”
Towards evening a desperate charge was made by W. H. F. Lee’s Division, in which we lost heavily. The movement was taken up by the divisions in the centre and on the left, and we broke the enemy’s infantry and scattered them like chaff before us. I flattered myself that my usual good luck would attend me, for, as I rode abreast of the line and bowed my head in passing under a tree, the bough which I had stooped to escape was struck sharply by a rifle ball. But only two or three minutes afterward I was shot squarely in the arm, near the shoulder, and put hors de combat. Archie Randolph was by me in a minute, and poured an indefinite quantity of apple brandy down my throat. This revived me, and, with my arm in a sling, I rode back to where General Fitz Lee was, only to be ordered peremptorily, for my pains, to return instantly to head-quarters. Keith Armistead, the son of General Armistead who was killed at Gettysburg, was one of our couriers, and he went back with me. That night an ineffectual effort was made by our surgeons to find the ball, which was supposed to be near the shoulder. General Lee insisted that I should go back to Petersburg or Richmond, as I preferred. Soon after daybreak I was told that the enemy had broken our lines at Petersburg, and I could not return to that place; so I went to Richmond, where I arrived on Sunday night, April 2.