The command moved quietly over the Blue Ridge into Greene county, and learned that Gen. Grant’s army was crossing the river, and that Gen. Lee was preparing everything for the inevitable meeting with the foe, and strange enough there were no murmurs now, as in all such movements, from the men of Rosser’s brigade, about leaving the bright Shenandoah Valley, for they seemed to have learned from the experience that they were soldiers, subject to the powers that be, and whether they approved or not they must obey orders.
On the march an incident occurred in Co. F, of the battalion, which, although condemned generally at the time, proved to be highly beneficial in its results. This company had been without an actual commanding officer during almost the whole time of its connection with the battalion, until the promotion of Capt. French, and he had found it an extremely difficult task to bring many of the men into any sort of subjection to discipline. On the night of the first encampment in Greene county, the Captain had given positive orders that no man should leave the camp without permission, but so far from the order being obeyed, it was hardly spoken before some of his men were gone, and remained out all night. In the morning, as they returned, Capt. French met one of them and inquired where he had been, to which the soldier replied, “Out in the country to stay all night.” “Did you not hear my order last night?” asked the Captain. "Yes, but I don’t mind orders when I want to go anywhere," was the answer; but it was scarcely given before the Captain’s sabre came down on his head, and the man fell badly hurt. This created great excitement in the company, and while most of them joined in a petition to the Captain to resign, some of them threatened him with personal violence; but when he heard of it he came out among the men alone, and proposed to give any or all of them the satisfaction they required, and awed by his fearless manner, all of them to a man submitted the case without a trial, and ever afterwards Capt. French’s orders were law in Co. F, and as has been stated, from being a very inefficient company, he raised it to the position of a first-class one for its numbers, but he never used his sabre on his own men afterwards.
On the evening of May 4th, the “Comanches” encamped in the pines on the Cataupin road, near the right of Gen. Lee’s army, and about six miles from Orange C. H.
CHAPTER XV.
The morning of May 5th opened calm and still, and there was no sign by which men could judge of the bloody day before them, for literally all was “quiet along the lines,” but the quiet of the scene was oppressive in its extreme stillness, and the sun rolled like an immense ball of barely red hot iron, seeming to be almost touching the tops of the pine trees under which lay the “Laurel Brigade,” unrefreshed by even the quiet repose of the past night, and many remarks were made about the singular appearance of the Day God as he waded higher and higher through the still, smoke-laden air of that battle-morn, some of the men repeating the Napoleonic exclamation, “remember the sun of Austerlitz,” and Colonel White declaring that it presaged a bloody day.
Soon after sunrise the command moved slowly down the Cataupin road, and in an hour the dismounted men were skirmishing with the enemy in the dense thickets of pine and undergrowth which closely bordered the road on either side and extended towards the river by Shady Grove and White Hall, but the battalion was not engaged, although rapidly marched from wing to wing, expecting each moment to be thrown upon the Yankee line, and not knowing just where the blue would break through the gray and compel a cavalry charge to drive them back, for the firing each moment grew in volume and intensity until the fight raged fiercely all along the lines. At this time the battalion was out of ammunition, and although details had been sent to the ordnance trains frequently, they always returned with the same aggravating report that none was to be procured, as the cavalry train had not yet come up, and under the circumstances the men watched with a far deeper interest than usual the progress of the battle. About the middle of the day Capt. Emmett, Rosser’s[Rosser’s] A. A. General, and Jim Robinson, the General’s pet courier, came from the front, both badly wounded, and told White’s men that the Yankees were reinforcing and they would soon have to charge, but about 2 o’clock General Rosser succeeded in driving the Yankees from their position, and at once pushed his brigade rapidly forward. Just as the battalion came in range of the enemy’s batteries the column halted, and for several minutes the situation was decidedly hot, the shells exploding precisely at that point, and causing the loss of several men and horses; but pretty soon one of the advance regiments drove off the annoying battery, and the whole column moved quickly forward over the Po river, where they struck a considerable force of the enemy, which, after a sharp fight, was completely routed, and Rosser’s men followed the retreating Yankees at a gallop, by some plantation roads and swamp paths, far to the left, bringing up at a body of woods on a hill about a mile from the river they had just crossed, and still on the Cataupin road, not far from Todd’s Tavern, having made a circuit in the chase of about three miles.
The men had become very much scattered in the rapid ride through such a country, and White’s people, being in the rear, were of course worse strung out than any others, in fact when the head of the first squadron (which by the evolutions on the other side of the river had been thrown in rear of the battalion) came up to the woods, where a division of the enemy’s cavalry had met and engaged the brigade in a fierce and stubborn fight, there were scarcely a dozen men in sight, and Capt. Myers called a halt in order to allow the others time to close up, as the front of the battalion was hid from view in the thick woods, but Gen. Rosser, who was sitting on his horse near the road, listening to the rapid firing in front of him, called out, excitedly, "Let ’em out, Myers; let ’em out! Old White’s in there, knocking them right and left." And with a wild yell Company A dashed forward, wheeling to the left as it reached the road, the Captain supposing he could thus come down upon the right flank of the enemy, but they had scarcely gone one hundred yards when a piece of artillery, hidden in the pines on the road side, blazed a storm of grape into the column, which for a minute checked its progress, and by the time the squadron was ready to charge the masked battery, it was limbered up and moved rapidly away, barely escaping capture. The first squadron then joined the battalion, finding it hotly engaged with fully six times its number, and for want of ammunition being slowly driven back.
The enemy had attempted repeatedly to charge, but was met and repulsed every time, and in this rally and retreat style of fighting, individuals on both sides displayed great skill and courage, but the fight was altogether on horseback, and as in the days when Cavalier and Puritan met in the conflict long ago, so it was now with their descendants, and the superiority of Southern horsemanship gave the advantage to that side, but it was the only one it did possess. Many prisoners were taken by White’s men, and the first demand was always for their cartridges and their arms afterwards, and every bullet thus taken from the captured Yankees was soon returned to their comrades, minus the powder however.
After an hour of hard fighting, a flank movement forced them almost to the edge of the woods on the hill before spoken of, and the men, discouraged because of their lack of ammunition, were ready to give up the fight, which the enemy did not show much disposition to press further, but the officers rallied them for another trial.
The battalion was drawn up alongside of the road, and as a regiment of Yankees galloped down in their front, Capt. Myers turned to Col. White, and asked, "Colonel, how can we fight those fellows with no ammunition? We’d as well have rocks as empty pistols." But the Colonel replied so grimly, “What are our sabres for?” that the men drew their blades without any hesitation, and charged square at the Yankee column, which wheeled about and retired faster than it came, closely pursued by the “Comanches,” but after going about half a mile a force of the enemy was observed moving through the pines to the right and rear of the battalion, and Capt. Myers, with Jack Dove and Jim Whaley, turned towards them and firing with captured pistols as rapidly as possible, called loudly for “first squadron,” “second squadron,” &c., to “forward” and “charge,” making so much noise in the operation, that the Yankees halted and opened a sharp fire upon what they supposed to be at least a rebel regiment, and shortly after, the Colonel returned with the battalion and the enemy retired over the hill.