Soon after this the enemy occupied the ground from which Chew had retired, and began to advance cautiously upon the woods where Rosser had his dismounted men, and in the fight which ensued the General was severely wounded in the leg and compelled to leave the field.
The command of the brigade now devolved upon Col. Dulaney, of the 7th regiment, and the fighting became stubborn for the possession of the woods; the enemy using artillery sparingly, and the Confederates entirely deprived of the aid of theirs because the situation of the ground would not permit its use without damaging their own men as much as the enemy.
The “Comanches” lay at the mouth of the Green Spring road, dismounted, to avoid the storm of bullets that whistled over them, when Col. Chew rode past them a short distance to see if he could plant his guns there, and Col. White rode up by his side. Just then the Yankees threw some shells which exploded immediately at them, and killed Chew’s horse, but the cast-iron artilleryman didn’t change his countenance in the least; and Maj. Thompson came prancing up to have a look too, when a shell burst almost in his face, but Thompson only laughed, and giving his hand a flutter in the white cloud of smoke, exclaimed, "Oh! but don’t that sound wicked?"
About 5 o’clock Maj. Ferneyhough took the first squadron on a scout up the Rail Road, and on his return found a battery posted at the forks of the road, which, after our previous artillery experience, we proceeded to inspect closely, and it, too, proved to be a Yankee, so branching off to the right, we gave it as wide a berth as the timber would let us.
It was now past sunset, and Sheridan had succeeded, with his whole force, in driving two of Hampton’s brigades from their position, and himself occupying, at dark, the same line they held at daylight; but thus far he was successful, and Gen. Hampton knew that he would follow it up to-morrow. But the two Generals had very different ideas about the day’s work; Sheridan supposing the battle was over, and Hampton knowing that it had not been fought yet.
About dark the Confederates retired to their camp on the Green Spring road, and rested securely until morning, when, without any hurry at all, they fed their horses, got breakfast, and prepared for the business of this bright and beautiful Sunday morning in June. A shower of rain had fallen during the night, and the stifling dust was nicely laid, so that, with the exception of fighting, whatever they had to do, could be performed in comfort.
Shortly after sunrise White’s battalion marched down to the line which Gen. Hampton had fortified, and found the dismounted men quietly lying behind the hastily thrown up piles of rails which stretched along the side of a hill that rose gradually from a creek, both flanks protected by heavy woods with thick undergrowth, and the country in front perfectly clear as far as their rifles would reach. The artillery was posted on the high ground along the road, and could command fully half the circle around them, in fact, it was a splendid position in which to receive an attack; but Sheridan did not seem to be in any hurry to break the glad Sunday quiet of the Valley, and hardly any firing was heard until after 12 o’clock.
The “Comanches”[“Comanches”] had been ordered to the extreme right of the line, on vedette duty, and were occasionally annoyed by Sheridan’s sharpshooters, but nothing serious occurred until about 4 o’clock, when the Yankees were discovered advancing in heavy lines, dismounted, on Hampton’s left, where all of Butler’s big “new issue” regiments were stationed, and almost immediately the artillery opened on them; but that was nothing to the hail-storm of lead that fell upon them from the “new issue.” Those raw men didn’t know anything at all about being whipped, and had no idea of anything but killing all the Yankees in sight, to which interesting occupation they bent all their energies, and made their rail piles look as if they were on fire, so incessantly did they burn their powder. In a very short time the first assault was repulsed, and the “new issue” didn’t really know they had been fighting; but other attacks followed in quick succession until about dark, when every man in Sheridan’s army had been whipped, and his whole force was in full retreat, their ambulances, wagons and demoralized troops rushing pell-mell along the road which ran within one hundred yards of Col. White’s position, and every moment the shells would crash from Chew’s guns right among the yelling, panic-stricken fugitives, making it a regular “Bull Run” on a small scale.
Col. White and his people moved up as close to them as the shells would permit, and the Colonel conceived the idea that with four hundred dismounted men he could capture the whole roadfull, but after sending repeatedly to Col. Dulaney for the required force, that officer finally sent him forty-two men, whom White sent back in disgust and gave up the project.
By nine o’clock everything was quiet along Hampton’s lines, and the utterly routed and defeated army of Sheridan was in full retreat towards Grant’s headquarters, where he published to the world that he had whipped Hampton’s cavalry, driving it to Gordonsville, but finding a heavy force of infantry in the entrenchments at that place had given up the pursuit.