Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman / With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War

by James Harvey Kidd

I have always believed that some of the real facts of the battle of the Little Big Horn were unknown. Probably the true version of the massacre will remain a sealed book until the dead are called upon to give up their secrets, though there are those who profess to believe that one man at least is still living who knows the real story and that some day he will tell it.

Certain it is that Custer never would have rushed deliberately on destruction. If, for any reason, he had desired to end his own life, and that is inconceivable, he would not have involved his friends and those whose lives had been entrusted to his care in the final and terrible catastrophe. He was not a reckless commander or one who would plunge into battle with his eyes shut. He was cautious and wary, accustomed to reconnoiter carefully and measure the strength of an enemy as accurately as possible before attacking. More than once the Michigan brigade was saved from disaster by Custer's caution. This may seem to many a novel—to some an erroneous estimate of Custer's characteristics as a military man. But it is a true one. It is an opinion formed by one who had good opportunity to judge of him correctly. In one sense only is it a prejudiced view. It is the judgment of a friend and a loyal one; it is not that of an enemy or a rival. As such it is appreciative and it is just.

Under his skilful hand the four regiments were soon welded into a coherent unit, acting so like one man that the history of one is oftentimes apt to be the history of the other, and it is difficult to draw the line where the credit that is due to one leaves off and that which should be given to another begins.

GEORGE A. CUSTER (IN 1864)

The result of the day at Hanover was that Stuart was driven still farther away from a junction with Lee. He was obliged to turn to the east, making a wide detour by the way of Jefferson and Dover Kilpatrick, meanwhile, maintaining his threatening attitude on the inside of the circle which the redoubtable confederate was traversing, and forcing the latter to swing clear around to the north as far as Carlisle, where he received the first reliable information as to the whereabouts of Lee. It was the evening of July 2, when he finally reached the main army. The battle then had been going on for two days, and the issue was still in doubt. During that day (2) both Stuart and Kilpatrick were hastening to rejoin their respective armies, it having been decided that the great battle would be fought out around Gettysburg. Gregg's division had been guarding the right flank of Meade's army, but at nightfall it was withdrawn to a position on the Baltimore pike near the reserve artillery.

Kilpatrick reached the inside of the union lines, in the vicinity of Gettysburg, late in the afternoon, at about the same hour that Hampton, with Stuart's leading brigade, arrived at Hunterstown, a few miles northeast of Gettysburg. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when the Third division, moving in column of fours, was halted temporarily, awaiting orders where to go in, and listening to the artillery firing close in front, when a staff officer rode rapidly along the column, crying out: "Little Mac is in command and we are whipping them." It was a futile attempt to evoke enthusiasm and conjure victory with the magic of McClellan's name. There was scarcely a faint attempt to cheer. There was no longer any potency in a name.

Soon thereafter, receiving orders to move out on the road to Abbottstown, Kilpatrick started in that direction, Custer's brigade leading, with the Sixth Michigan in advance. When nearing the village of Hunterstown, on a road flanked by fences, the advance encountered a heavy force of confederate cavalry. A mounted line was formed across the road, while there were dismounted skirmishers behind the fences on either side. The leading squadron of the Sixth, led by Captain H.E. Thompson, boldly charged down the road, and at the same time, three troops were dismounted and deployed on the ridge to the right, Pennington's battery going into position in their rear. The mounted charge was a most gallant one, but Thompson, encountering an overwhelmingly superior force in front, and exposed to a galling fire on both flanks, as he charged past the confederates behind the fences, was driven back, but not before he himself had been severely wounded, while his first lieutenant, S.H. Ballard, had his horse shot under him and was left behind a prisoner. As Thompson's squadron was retiring, the enemy attempted a charge in pursuit, but the dismounted men on the right of the road kept up such a fusillade with their Spencer carbines, aided by the rapid discharges from Pennington's battery, that he was driven back in great confusion. General Kilpatrick, speaking in his official report of this engagement, says:

"I was attacked by Stuart, Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee near Hunterstown. After a spirited affair of nearly two hours, the enemy was driven from this point with great loss. The Second brigade fought most handsomely. It lost in killed and wounded and missing, 32. The conduct of the Sixth Michigan cavalry and Pennington's battery is deserving of the highest praise."