But this momentary indecision, whether or not it would have continued much longer of his own volition, was not destined to do so when the will of another came into play. A horseman dashed rapidly over to the spot where Kilpatrick was momentarily halted, from Pleasanton a few hundreds of yards away, running a fearful gauntlet of the enemy's fire, as he did so, from a battery that had just wheeled into position and opened down a narrow cross-street to the left,—spoke a few quick words to the General and then awaited the movement that was to follow. And it was not long that he or the commander who sent him needed to wait. The command had been: "Clear that bridge and take the battery, at all hazards!" and Kilpatrick only needed that support of his own judgment to order a charge which he would have been best pleased, if he could only have gone back to be a Colonel for a few moments, to lead in person. His eye rolled questioningly over the Third for a moment, and then the rapid words of command followed. Only a certain number of cavalry could be employed upon that dangerous service, without making the carnage greater by throwing the troopers literally in the way of each other; and it was the Second New York, Harris Light Guard, a troop which had already won honor on every field touched by the hoofs of their horses,—called out for that quick, sharp, perilous duty that every squadron in the command probably coveted.
The gallant Second received the order with loud cheers that came nigh to imitating the well-known rebel fox-hunting yell, for some of their best fellows had fallen ingloriously and the human tiger was not only unchained but set on horseback. They formed column by fours with a rapidity which told of the fierce hunger of conflict; and when the bugles rang out the charge, the dusty and smoke-stained riders returned their now-useless carbines to their slings, drew sabres, and driving their spurs rowel deep into the flanks of horses that seemed almost as anxious as themselves, dashed forward towards the bridge. Their ringing shouts did not cease as they galloped on, and their sword-blades, if they grew thinner in number, still gleamed as brightly as ever in the sunlight, as they measured that narrow but fatal space, while round after round of grape and canister, carbine-bullets, musket-balls and rifle-shots, burst into their faces and mowed down their flanks as they swept on. Saddles were emptied, horses went down with cries of pain more fearful than any that man can utter, and brave men went headlong into the dust from which they would never rise again in life. But the progress of the charging squadron did not seem to be delayed a moment. The rebel gunners of the battery were reloading for yet one more discharge, when, just in the midst of that operation, over the bridge and upon them burst the head of that column which seemed as if nothing in the way of human missiles had power to stay it. Before the gray and begrimed cannoniers could withdraw their rammers the troopers were in their midst. Then followed that fierce cutting and thrusting of artillery swords and cavalry sabres, that interchange of revolver-shots and crushing of human bones under the feet of trampling horses, incident to the taking of any battery that is sharply attacked and bravely defended. A little of this, but still under heavy fire from behind,—and the guns were captured, with all their men and horses left alive.
And yet the work of the Second New York in that quarter was by no means finished. That steady and murderous fire continued from up the street, as the infantry and the dismounted cavalry of the support fell back; and it was only by one more sweeping charge that the annoyance could be removed. Scarcely any one knew whence came the voice that ordered that second charge, but the blood of the troopers was up and they made it gallantly. In three minutes thereafter a broken and flying mass, far up the street, was all that remained of the supporting force; but a fearfully diminished number of the cavalrymen rode back to assist in sending the captured battery to the rear. We shall have occasion, presently, to know something more of these two charges, undoubtedly the most spirited events of a day on which all the Union troops and many of the rebels reflected honor upon the causes they supported.
Immediately after the clearing of the bridge a gallant dash was made by Gen. Custer, the "boy general with the golden-locks" (the man who has made a solemn vow, it is said, never to shorten those locks until he rides victoriously into Richmond) leading the charge in person, with portions of the First Vermont and First Michigan cavalry, against a section of a battery, stationed nearly a quarter of a mile beyond the bridge and within a hundred or two yards of the front of Stuart's main body. These pieces were worked by as obstinate a set of gray-backs as ever rammed home a rebel cartridge; and the gunners, defiant of Custer's detour to the left to escape a direct raking fire, and apparently relying upon the main body lying so near them, continued to load and fire until the federal leader and his men were literally on the top of the pieces and fairly riding them under foot. Guns and caissons were taken, while the support relied upon seemed to be so paralyzed by the daring of the whole affair as scarcely to offer any resistance,—the horses hitched to the pieces, the guns limbered up, and the rebel gunners even forced to mount and drive their lost cannon to join the others in the rear!
A considerable rebel force of cavalry, artillery and infantry were by this time in full retreat below the town, along the line of the Orange and Alexandria railroad; and the Fifth New York cavalry were sent in pursuit. The gallant troopers of the Fifth charged at a gallop the moment they came within sweeping distance of the foe, but the high embankment of the road broke the charge, and the detour necessary to make a more advantageous approach deprived the gallant boys of their half-won laurels and allowed the flying enemy to escape.
While Kilpatrick was thus engaged, Buford and Gregg, with the First and Second, had been by no means idle. Dashing into the town, each from his chosen direction, the troopers of each leaped barricades and drove the rebels before them wherever encountered upon open ground; and a part of the force of either division, dismounted, skirmished from corner to corner and dislodged the sharp-shooters one by one from all their holes and hiding-places. Sometimes stubbornly resisted, at others seeming to have no foe worthy of their steel, the three divisions won their way through the old town; and the cavalry of Stuart, up to that time so often declared invincible, were at last driven pell-mell out of Culpeper and back to the momentary refuge of Pony Mountain. Even there they were again dislodged, the First Michigan cavalry accomplishing a feat which might have surprised even Halstead Rowan of this chronicle—routing a whole brigade by charging up a hill so steep that some of the riders slipped backwards over the tails of their horses, their saddles bearing them company!
The town of Culpeper was finally occupied at one o'clock, p. m.; and not many hours after the ridge behind it and Pony Mountain were in the hands of the dashing cavalrymen. Retreating towards the Rapidan, they were pursued towards Raccoon Ford on the left and centre by Buford and Kilpatrick with the First and Third divisions, while Gregg, with the Second, pushed a heavy Rebel force before him to Rapidan Station. By nightfall the rebels had been driven to the north bank of the Rapidan, where both forces bivouacked that night in line of battle.
Monday morning saw the recommencement of hostilities and the retreat of the rebels to the south side of the river, leaving the federal forces to hold the country between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, with all the strategic points therein, Culpeper included. Stuart, it was said, had often boasted that "no Yankee force could drive him from Culpeper!" and if such a boast was really made and afterwards so signally disproved by the "horde of Yankee tailors on horseback," the fact only furnishes one more additional proof to Benedick's declaration that he would live and die a bachelor, so soon followed by his marriage with Beatrice,—that humanity is very uncertain and that human calculations are fallible to a degree painful to contemplate!
Such were the general features of the crossing of the Rappahannock and the Battle of Culpeper, one of the sharpest cavalry affairs of the war, and perhaps more important as illustrating the reliability to which the Union horse had attained from a beginning little less than contemptible, than from the mere military advantage gained by the movement. It now becomes necessary to descend to a few particulars connected with the event of the day, and briefly to trace the influence on the fortunes of some of the leading characters in this narration, exercised by the advance of General Pleasanton and his dashing brigadiers.
It has been seen that at a certain period of that day the division of Kilpatrick was held temporarily in check by the rebel battery posted at the railroad-bridge, and that for a moment the General, aware of the necessity of removing the obstruction if the direct advance through Culpeper was to be continued, yet hesitated in ordering the charge which must be made in the face of such overwhelming difficulty, until a peremptory direction from Pleasanton left him no option in the matter. And it is to personal movements of that particular period that attention must at this moment be directed.