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

by James Harvey Kidd

The truth of the inference was too evident to be disputed. Things were beginning to look suspicious, and in another instant all doubt, if any remained, was set at rest. The horseman, after circling about a time or two, brought his horse to a standstill facing in the direction from which we were approaching. There was a puff of smoke from the muzzle of his revolver or carbine, and a bullet whizzed by and buried itself in the breast of one of the horses in the first set of fours.

"There,—it," exclaimed Lovell. "Now you know it is a rebel, don't you?"

The information was too reliable not to be convincing, and the regiment was promptly brought front into line, which had hardly been accomplished, when shots began to come from other points in the woods, and no further demonstration was needed that they were full of confederates.

The fence was close at hand, and the command to dismount to fight on foot was given. The Sixth deployed along the fence and the Spencers began to bark. The horses were sent back a short distance, under cover of a reverse slope. The acting adjutant was dispatched to overtake Custer and report to him that we were confronted by a large force of confederates and had been attacked. Before he had started, the confederates displayed a line of dismounted skirmishers that extended far beyond both flanks of the regiment and a swarm of them in front. A Michigan regiment, behind a fence, and armed with Spencer carbines, was a dangerous antagonist to grapple with by a direct front assault, and Fitzhugh Lee's men were not eager to advance across the open field, but hugged the woods, waiting for their friends on the right and left to get around our flanks, which there was imminent danger of their doing, before relief could come. It did not, however, take Custer long to act. Putting the Fifth Michigan in on the right of the Sixth, he brought back Pennington's battery, and stationed the First Vermont mounted to protect the left flank, holding the First Michigan mounted in reserve to support the battery and to reinforce any weak point, and proceeded to put up one of the gamiest fights against odds, seen in the war. Opposed to Custer's five regiments and one battery, Fitzhugh Lee had twelve regiments of cavalry, three brigades under Lomax, Owen and Chambliss and as good a battery—Breathed's—as was in the confederate service.

Before the dispositions described in the foregoing had been completed, Breathed's battery, which had been masked in the woods to the right and front of the position occupied by the Sixth Michigan, opened fire with shell. But Pennington came into position with a rush, and unlimbering two pieces, in less time than it takes to tell it, silenced the confederate artillery, firing over the heads of the Sixth Michigan skirmishers. Fitzhugh Lee pressed forward his dismounted line, following it closely with mounted cavalry, and made a desperate effort to cut off Custer's line of retreat by the bridge. This he was unable to do. The Sixth held on to the fence until the confederates were almost to it, and until ordered by Custer to retire, when they fell back slowly, and mounting their horses, crossed the bridge leisurely, without hurry or flurry, the battery and the other regiments, except the First and Fifth Michigan, preceding it. The First Michigan brought up the rear.

Fitzhugh Lee was completely foiled in his effort to get in Custer's rear, or to break up his flanks. Unfortunately, a portion of one battalion of the Fifth Michigan, about fifty men, under command of Major John Clark, with Captain Lee and Adjutant George Barse was captured. Being dismounted in the woods on the right, they were not able to reach their horses before being intercepted by the enemy's mounted men.

Custer, on the whole, was very fortunate and had reason to congratulate himself on escaping with so little damage. Davies did not fare so well. When Kilpatrick found that Custer was attacked, he sent orders to Davies to retreat. But the sound of firing which gave this notice to Kilpatrick was also the prearranged signal for Stuart, and that officer immediately turned on Davies with his entire division, and Davies though he put up a stout resistance had no alternative finally but to take to the woods on the north side of the pike and escape, "every man for himself." Fitzhugh Lee was between him and the bridge, he was hemmed in on three sides, and in order to escape, his men had to plunge in and swim their horses across Broad Run. The Fifth Michigan, except Major Clark's command, escaped in the same way. The wagons, which followed Davies, including Custer's headquarters wagon containing all his papers, were captured.

At first blush, it may appear that, if the vidette who fired the first shot, thus divulging the fact of the enemy's presence, had not done so, the Sixth Michigan would have gone on and marched right into Fitzhugh Lee's arms. It is not likely, however, that such would have been the result. Captain Lovell had already seen and called attention to the picket, declaring that he was a "rebel." The obvious course, under the circumstances, before taking down the fence and advancing to the woods, would have been to deploy a skirmish line and feel of the woods instead of blundering blindly into them.

Fitzhugh Lee made a mistake in halting to dismount. He should have charged the Sixth Michigan. Had he charged at once mounted as Rosser did in the Wilderness, with his overwhelmingly superior force at the moment of his arrival he must certainly have interposed between Custer and the bridge. He allowed one regiment to detain his division until Custer could bring back his brigade, and get his regiments into position to support each other.

Major H.B. McClellan, Stuart's adjutant general, commenting in his book[20] on this battle, says that "Custer was a hard fighter, even on a retreat." He also says: