An hour before daylight Col. White, with a few men, came down the road, and halting with the 1st squadron informed Capt. Myers that A. P. Hill was coming down during the day to drive the Yankees away from Reams’; that Hampton was going to draw their attention and amuse them until Hill could get his position; that the Colonel was going on a scout for Hampton, and would be gone all day, and that Myers was to take charge of the battalion for that length of time.
About sunrise Gen. Hampton came along, and putting White’s men in front ordered them to go to Wyatt’s Crossing, about a mile from Reams’, and wait further orders.
Gen. Rosser was now at the head of the Laurel Brigade, and he soon came up and remarked to Myers that he wanted “his people” for advance guard again to-day, to which the Captain replied that he "didn’t mind the hanging half as much as he did the being told of it so long beforehand." On reaching the Crossing they found some Yankee pickets who retired towards Reams’, and with the exception of an occasional shot, everything was quiet until 9 o’clock, when the enemy opened fire with artillery upon Rosser’s men, and pretty soon Chew commenced to reply, but no advance was attempted on either side.
During the cannonade Generals Rosser and Butler sat on their horses just in front of White’s Battalion, which, as a matter of course, stood by Chew’s artillery, and once, when the shells flew low over their heads, and some of the men dodged, Gen. Butler remarked, “They are disposed to be rather familiar this morning,” to which Rosser replied, "Yes, politeness is in order this morning, but don’t bow too low, boys, it isn’t becoming;" but Henry Simpson exclaimed, "Yes it is; it’s becoming a little too dam hot here, if that’s what you mean," and most of the boys were of Henry’s opinion.
The day passed in constant marching and counter-marching; sometimes the “Comanches” would be dismounted and ordered to pile up rails for breastworks, and then ordered to mount quick and charge; but no fighting was done until about 3 o’clock in the evening, when the heavy firing on the left showed that Hampton had “amused” the Yankees long enough, and now A. P. Hill was at them.
The Yankees were strongly fortified at the Station, and in their front had an abattis of trees felled with their tops from the works, and all the branches trimmed sharp, so that it was almost impossible for Hill’s infantry to get through at all, and in fact two brigades were repulsed with heavy loss, but when Gen. Mahone, the builder and president of the Rail Road, came up with his brigade; he took his people through and up to the breastworks, but the enemy was still there, and now both parties lay along the works, so that neither could fight or retreat, but pretty soon Mahone’s men out-Yankeed the Yankees, and taking up some heavy cross-ties and rail-bars that were convenient they threw them high over the fortifications, causing them to fall with telling effect upon the heads of the Yankees, forcing them to leave their defences, and as they retired Mahone’s men, with the works now completely turned upon them, raised up and poured a terribly destructive fire upon the retreating enemy, causing tremendous slaughter, and at the same moment Gen. Hampton charged them in flank, capturing four guns and many prisoners.
Gen. Hill’s infantry took twelve pieces in the works, making sixteen guns captured, and about three thousand prisoners, besides five hundred killed and many wounded, making their loss in this day’s fight certainly reach very near five thousand in all, while the Confederates lost about seven hundred, killed, wounded and missing.
At dark, Gen. Rosser ordered Capt. Sipe, commanding the 12th regiment, and Capt. Myers, of White’s Battalion, to report to Gen. Hampton, who instructed them to move their commands to Reams’ and relieve the infantry in the fortifications, which they did about midnight, in the most terrible storm of rain, thunder and lightning it is possible to imagine. The vivid streams, not flashes, of lightning danced and glanced along the Rail Road track and over the captured guns, which still stood there, while every moment the crashing thunder just overhead pealed out as if the inky sky was being torn to splinters, and in sheets and torrents the floods of rain poured down, while through the thick blackness of the storm and night could be heard all around the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying Federals, who, totally unable to help themselves, were gasping out their lives in agony, without one friend to shelter them from the raging of the fierce tempest or stop the ebbing life-tide that poured from their mangled bodies, and in the morning light there lay many corpses along the ground at Reams’ whose souls had gone up to the judgment-throne amid the bursting storm and thunder of that horrible night.
Among those who survived was a Captain of Infantry, who had cause to bless the genius of Freemasonry, for by aid of its mystic signs he found a brother in the ranks of his foes, who helped him as only a brother would have done and gave him back to life again.
There was no attempt on the part of the enemy to come back to Reams’, but they established their vedette lines along the pines and old fields of tossing sedge to the right of the Rail Road, towards Petersburg, and on the 26th Col. White placed his battalion on picket in front of them and scarcely three hundred yards from their lines, but there was no firing, and both sides, in act, agreed to the childish proposition of "I’ll let you alone if you’ll let me alone."