From these extracts it will be seen how commanding officers, when they write their official reports of a night rencounter, are apt to draw on their imaginations for the facts. The stout fight put up by Kilpatrick, and the graphic account by Hampton of how he whipped three brigades with a handful of confederates hastily assembled, are equally mythical.
Davies's report gives a very accurate description of the affair. From this we find that he picketed toward Richmond and the Meadow bridges, taking care of the flanks and rear. The slight skirmishing with his pickets, of which he speaks, must have been with small bodies that came out from Richmond or which followed him from his position of the day on the Brook pike. It had no relation to Hampton's attack which was from the opposite direction and entirely distinct. To Sawyer it was left, it would appear, to look out for the front—that is, toward Ashland and Hanover Courthouse. Sawyer sent the Seventh Michigan out on picket, the outer line advanced as far as Atlee's Station.
When Hampton came in from Hughes's cross roads, he did not stop to skirmish with the videttes. He did not fire a shot but followed the pickets into the camp and opened with carbines and two pieces of artillery at close range. No arrangements appear to have been made to support the Seventh properly in the event of such an attack, which might have been foreseen. Sawyer should have reinforced the Seventh with his entire brigade. And it was equally incumbent on Kilpatrick to support Sawyer with Davies's brigade if he needed support. Neither of these things was done. Kilpatrick's artillery made no response to that of Hampton. The only order was to retreat. Hampton was not far away from the facts when he said that "Kilpatrick immediately moved his division off at a gallop." He did not move it "at a gallop." He moved it at a walk. But he moved "immediately." He did not stop to fight, and morning found him well on the way to the Pamunkey river. It was an unlucky event for poor Litchfield. He was held as a prisoner of war very nearly if not quite until the curtain had fallen on the final scene at Appomattox. I do not remember that he ever again had the privilege of commanding his regiment.
A.C. LITCHFIELD
Kilpatrick's strategy was better than his tactics. His plan was bold in conception, but faulty in execution. It has been shown that he made a mistake in dividing his command; that he made another when he failed to order an immediate attack after his arrival before the city. His afterthought of sending Preston and Taylor, at midnight, in a snow storm, and on a night so dark that it would have been impossible to keep together, to be sure of the way, or to distinguish friend from foe, to do a thing which he hesitated to do in the daytime and with his entire force, would have been a more serious blunder than either. Of course, if Preston had started, it would have been with the determination to succeed or lose his life in the adventure. That was his reputation and his character as a soldier. But the services and lives of such men are too valuable to be wasted in futile attempts. It might have been glorious but it would not have been war.
To conclude this rambling description. In October, 1907, while attending the Jamestown exposition I met Colonel St. George Tucker, president of the exposition company and a well known scion of one of the first families of Virginia. The conversation turned to certain incidents of the civil war, among others some of those pertaining to the Kilpatrick raid. Colonel Tucker was at the time a boy ten years of age. Armed with a gun he was at a window in the second story of his father's house ready to do his part in repelling the "vandals" should they invade the streets of the city. This circumstance sheds light on the real situation. With the schoolboys banded together to defend their homes, and every house garrisoned in that way, not to mention the regular soldiers and the men who were on duty, it is quite certain that Richmond would have been an uncomfortable place that night for Preston and his little band of heroes. A man's house is his citadel and boys and women will fight to defend it.
From Old Church the command moved Wednesday to Tunstall's Station, and thence by way of New Kent Courthouse and Williamsburg to Yorktown. At Yorktown the various regiments took transports to Washington and from Washington marched back to their old camps around Stevensburg, no event of importance marking the journey. They arrived on the Rapidan about the middle of the month, having been absent two weeks. The men stood the experience better than the horses. The animals were weakened and worn out and the time remaining before the opening of active operations was hardly sufficient for their recuperation.