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

by James Harvey Kidd

During the early evening it was known throughout the command that the general had not given up the hope of capturing the city and liberating the prisoners. A body of five hundred men led by Lieutenant Colonel Addison W. Preston of the First Vermont cavalry was to start out from our camp by the Mechanicsville road, charge in, release the prisoners and bring them out, Kilpatrick covering the movement with his entire command. The latter's official report says there were two bodies, one to be led by Preston, the other by Major Taylor of the First Maine cavalry. The name of Preston was a guarantee that the dash, if made at all, would be bravely led. There was no more gallant officer in the whole cavalry corps.

The conditions were such as to make one wakeful and alert, if anything could. But the danger of yielding for an instant to the allurement of the drowsiness produced by the long ride without sleep was overpowering. In an instant after getting under cover of the shelter tent I was emulating the seven sleepers. It is doubtful if the trump of Gabriel himself, had it sounded, could have awakened me. The assurance that we were protected by pickets, and the order to go into camp having been given unaccompanied by any warning to be alert and on the watch for danger, had lulled me into such an absolutely false sense of security that I was for the time dead to all the surroundings. There was firing among the pickets. I did not hear it. A cannon boomed. I did not hear it. A second piece of artillery added to the tumult. I did not hear it. Shells hurtled through the trees, over the camp and the waves of sound did not disturb my ear. At last partial consciousness returned. There was a vague sense of something out of the usual order going on. Then I found that Barnhart and the orderly were pulling me out of the "pup" tent by the heels. That sufficed. I was instantly wide awake. Barnhart was ordered to get his horse and mount the regiment. The orderly to saddle my horse and his own. In a few moments all hands were in the saddle. The regiment was wheeled by fours and moved a short distance to the right, more in the shadow and out of range of the shells, and formed in line facing toward where the enemy was supposed to be, and held there awaiting orders. No orders to advance came, nor was any brigade line of battle formed. In a very short time a staff officer came riding fast and directed me to move out by fours on the road in rear of the alignment and follow the command which he said had gone and was retreating. He did not say what road it was nor whither it led. He then rode away. Wheeling into column the regiment was moved out on the road and, greatly confused as to the points of the compass, and not hearing or seeing anything of the column, turned in the wrong direction. The same staff officer soon overtook the head of the regiment and set us right. We had to countermarch and, as a matter of fact, were going towards the enemy instead of joining in the retreat. It was by mistake, however. We had gone probably an eighth of a mile before being stopped.

LEVANT W. BARNHART
WILLIAM HULL

The march then led back within sight of the camp which had been vacated. As we passed that point, far away in the distance among the trees, by the light of the abandoned fires, could be seen men flitting like specters through the places where the camps had been. They were presumably the enemy and apparently bent on plunder rather than conquest. It was a good time to give them a Roland for their Oliver but there did not seem to be a disposition to make a concerted attack or, in fact, any attack at all. Kilpatrick was in full retreat toward Old Church, abandoning his plan of a midnight attack on Richmond.

The force which made the attack on the camps was led by Wade Hampton who, as soon as he knew of the expedition, set out on the trail, picking up odds and ends of confederate cavalry when and where he could. He marched that day from Hanover Courthouse and says he came in sight of the camp fires near Atlee's Station and to his right on the Telegraph or Brook road. He must have been deceived as to the direction, for it is not possible that any portion of the main body could have been in camp on either of those roads. The camp he attacked was that of the Seventh Michigan which bore the brunt of it. This regiment lost a number of prisoners including the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Litchfield.

We must have marched at least a mile, perhaps more, when the column was overtaken. It was moving at a walk on the road leading to Old Church. Finding myself in rear with no rear guard I detached three troops (A, E and G) and held them with sufficient interval to cover the retreat. When there was a halt they were formed in line across the road and facing to the rear with carbines loaded and at a "ready" to repel any attack, should one be made. Once when halted the tread of horses could be heard approaching.

"Halt! Who comes there?" was the challenge.

"Major Wells and a portion of the First Vermont cavalry," was the reply.