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

by James Harvey Kidd

WILLIAM D. MANN

There was no check to the charge. The squadrons kept on in good form. Every man yelled at the top of his voice until the regiment had gone, perhaps, five or six hundred yards straight towards the confederate batteries, when the head of column was deflected to the left, making a quarter turn, and the regiment was hurled headlong against a post-and-rail fence that ran obliquely in front of the Rummel buildings. This proved for the time an impassable barrier. The squadrons coming up successively at a charge, rushed pell mell on each other and were thrown into a state of indescribable confusion, though the rear troops, without order or orders, formed left and right front into line along the fence, and pluckily began firing across it into the faces of the confederates who, when they saw the impetuous onset of the Seventh thus abruptly checked, rallied and began to collect in swarms upon the opposite side. Some of the officers leaped from their saddles and called upon the men to assist in making an opening. Among these were Colonel George G. Briggs, then adjutant, and Captain H.N. Moore. The task was a difficult and hazardous one, the posts and rails being so firmly united that it could be accomplished only by lifting the posts, which were deeply set, and removing several lengths at once. This was finally done, however, though the regiment was exposed not only to a fire from the force in front, but to a flanking fire from a strong skirmish line along a fence to the right and running nearly at right angles with the one through which it was trying to pass.

While this was going on, Briggs's horse was shot and he found himself on foot, with three confederate prisoners on his hands. With these he started to the rear, having no remount. Before he could reach a place of safety, the rush of charging squadrons from either side had intercepted his retreat. In the melee that followed, two of his men ran away, the other undertook the duty of escorting his captor back to the confederate lines. The experiment cost him his life, but the plucky adjutant, although he did not "run away," lived to fight again on many "another day."

In the meantime, through the passage-way thus effected, the Seventh moved forward, the center squadron leading, and resumed the charge. The confederates once more fell back before it. The charge was continued across a plowed field to the front and right, up to and past Rummel's, to a point within 200 or 300 yards of the confederate battery. There another fence was encountered, the last one in the way of reaching the battery, the guns of which were pouring canister into the charging column as fast as they could fire. Two men, privates Powers and Inglede, of Captain Moore's troop, leaped this fence and passed several rods beyond. Powers came back without a scratch, but Inglede was severely wounded. These two men were, certainly, within 200 yards of the confederate cannon.

GEORGE G. BRIGGS

But, seeing that the enemy to the right had thrown down the fences, and was forming a column for a charge, the scattered portions of the Seventh began to fall back through the opening in the fence. Captain Moore, in whose squadron sixteen horses had been killed, retired slowly, endeavoring to cover the retreat of the dismounted men but, taking the wrong direction, came to the fence about 100 yards above the opening, just as the enemy's charging column struck him. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught the gleam of a saber thrust from the arm of a sturdy confederate. He ducked to avoid the blow, but received the point in the back of his head. At the same time, a pistol ball crashed through his charger's brain and the horse went down, Moore's leg under him. An instant later, Moore avenged his steed with the last shot in his revolver, and the confederate fell dead at his side. Some dismounted men of the Thirteenth Virginia cavalry took Moore prisoner and escorted him back to the rear of their battery, from which position, during the excitement that followed, he made his escape.

But now Alger who, when his ammunition gave out, hastened to his horses, had succeeded in mounting one battalion, commanded by Major L.S. Trowbridge, and when the Ninth and Thirteenth Virginia struck the flank of the Seventh Michigan, he ordered that officer to charge and meet this new danger. Trowbridge and his men dashed forward with a cheer, and the enemy in their turn were put to flight. Past the Rummel buildings, through the fields, almost to the fence where the most advanced of the Seventh Michigan had halted, Trowbridge kept on. But he, too, was obliged to retire before the destructive fire of the confederate cannon, which did not cease to belch forth destruction upon every detachment of the union cavalry that approached near enough to threaten them. The major's horse was killed, but his orderly was close at hand with another and he escaped. When his battalion was retiring it, also, was assailed in flank by a mounted charge of the First Virginia cavalry, which was met and driven back by the other battalion of the Fifth Michigan led by Colonel Alger.