The Comanches: A History of White's Battalion, Virginia Cavalry

by Frank M. Myers

The Loudoun detachment marched by Hanover Junction, over the well remembered fighting-ground of Cold Harbor and Mechanicsville, and joined the brigade, on the night of the 25th, near Atlee’s Station, six miles north of Richmond, where it encamped for the night, and on the morning of the 26th passed through the city, crossing on Mayo’s bridge to the south side of the James.

General Rosser’s division was composed now of two brigades, one commanded by Brig. General McCausland, and the other—his own old brigade—by Brig. General Dearing, an accomplished young officer, who had highly distinguished himself under General Hoke at the capture of Plymouth, N. C., and also on the Petersburg lines during the long campaign of 1864, and although a total stranger to the Valley brigade, his genial, affable disposition and soldierly appearance, together with the brilliant reputation which had preceded him, soon rendered him a great favorite with the troops who had followed the lead of such men as Ashby, Jones and Rosser.

The division passed Petersburg on the 27th, and on the 28th united with General W. H. F. Lee’s division near Stony Creek Station, and encamped on the Nottaway river. The two divisions had less than three thousand men in them, that of Rosser not numbering over twelve hundred, when if all its men out of prison and capable of duty had been present the brigade of Dearing alone would have had certainly not less than twenty-five hundred in ranks; but what was true of one part of the army was also true of the balance of it, and General Lee had only a remnant of what had been the A. N. V. to meet Grant’s hundred and sixty thousand men.

The weather was most unfavorable, as rain fell almost continually; the ground was as full of water as a sponge, so that it was difficult and dangerous to ride a horse off the roads, which were themselves almost knee-deep in mire and mud, while the streams were swollen to the brim, and many of them the troopers had to cross by swimming their horses, to the great damage of ammunition and such rations as they had.

On the 39th the command was ordered towards Dinwiddie Court-house, where Sheridan was pressing the Confederates in his attempt to reach the South Side Rail Road, which, if cut, would completely destroy all outside communication with Richmond and Petersburg, and here Gen. Fitz. Lee, who now commanded the Cavalry Corps A. N. V., was combining all his energies to save the road and the right wing of Lee’s army.

On the 31st of March the battalion took part in the battle of Five Forks, and on the 1st of April was engaged all day in fighting, scouting and picketing, in the vicinity of Hatcher’s run; two names rendered famous in the history of the war by the desperate fighting of the Cavalry Corps, and of the glorious Infantry Division of General Pickett; and from now to the end, the battalion was closely connected with the operations of the army, in the last brief and gloomy, but forever glorious campaign, which crushed the hopes that had sustained the hearts of Lee’s veterans through four weary years of suffering and blood, and we cannot separate the history of the “Comanches” from that of the Corps to which they belonged, and in which they performed all the duties allotted to them.

The night of April 1st was a sleepless one, for the horribly incessant thundering of the artillery at Petersburg, and the rattling of the muskets over Hatcher’s run, told to the troopers that the moment when they must take to their saddles and engage in the fray might be at hand; but no move was made until the morning of the 2d, when the enemy on the right succeeded in flanking the divisions of Fitz. and W. H. Lee and Pickett, routing and driving them from their position, and the retreat began, not towards Petersburg, for that, too, had fallen, but along the Rail Road towards the West.

Here Col. White, with his battalion of eighty men, was placed in the rear, and until 3 o’clock kept back the harassing forces of the enemy which pressed close on flanks and rear, threatening to ride over the “Comanches” at almost every step of the march, which was clogged and hindered continually by the trains of wagons that the worn-out teams were dragging through the mud at what seemed almost a snail’s pace.

In the evening it became necessary to halt, in order to protect the trains, and Fitz. Lee’s division wheeled to the rear, where temporary breastworks were thrown up, and the Yankees checked for a time; but the battalion lost the services of two of its best officers in Lieut. Chiswell, of Company B, and Lieut. Strickler, Company E, who were both severely wounded, and also of Sergeant Alonzo Sellman, Company B, who, though shot in the head and given up for dead, survived and finally recovered.

The division of General Johnson (infantry) moved also to the rear, and by aid of the cavalry repulsed every attack of the Yankees until midnight, when the whole force again crossed Hatcher’s run and halted until daylight, when the toilsome retreat was continued, the wagons still dragging along slower and slower, requiring the cavalry to dispute the passage of every stream with the enemy, and halt on every hill-top to offer battle to their pressing columns, which, flushed with success, and brave because of their numbers, grew more and more determined in their dogging attacks upon the rear, while the Confederates, worn-out, hungry and disheartened, still plodded on through rain and mud, and still faintly hoped that General Lee would stop, in some way, the advancing foe, and bring success out of the cloud of disaster that now overwhelmed them.