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

by James Harvey Kidd

This ambition, however, was nearly stifled, soon after its birth, by an experience very galling to the pride of a well meaning, if sensitive and fallible historian.

It was something like twenty years ago that a paper on the battle of Cedar Creek, prepared with conscientious care and scrupulous fidelity to the facts as the writer understood them, was mailed to General Wesley Merritt, with the request, couched in modest and courteous phrase, that he point out after having read it any inaccuracies of statement that he might make a note of, as the article was intended for publication.

The distinguished cavalry officer replied, in a style that was bland, that he had "long since ceased to read fiction;" that he no longer read "even the Century war articles;" that an officer one month would give his version of things which another officer in a subsequent number of the same magazine would stoutly contradict; and that he was heartily tired of the whole business.

General Merritt was, however, good enough to give in detail his reasons for dissenting from the writer's account of a certain episode of the battle, and his letter lent emphasis to the discussion in one of the early chapters of this volume concerning men occupying different points of view in a battle. This particular matter will be more fully treated in its proper place. One must not be too sure of what he sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears, unless he is backed by a cloud of witnesses.

Moreover this was notice plain as holy writ, that no mere amateur in the art of war may presume, without the fear of being discredited, to have known and observed that which did not at the time come within the scope of those who had a recognized status as professional soldiers and find its way into their official reports. Indeed, a very high authority as good as told the writer in the war records office in Washington that no man's memory is as good as the published record, or entitled to any weight at all when not in entire harmony therewith.

It is evident that this rule, though perhaps a proper and necessary one, to protect the literature of the war against imposition and fraud, may very easily bar out much that is valuable and well worth writing, if not indispensable to a fair and complete record, provided it can in some way be accredited and invested with the stamp of truth.

It was quite possible for brigade and even regimental commanders, not to draw the line finer still, to have experiences on the battle field of which their immediate superiors were not cognizant; nor is it necessary to beg the question by arguing that all commanding officers were allowed to exercise a discretion of their own within certain limits.

Official reports were oftentimes but hastily and imperfectly sketched amidst the hurry and bustle of breaking camp; or on the eve of battle, when the mind might be occupied with other things of immediate and pressing importance. Sometimes they were prepared long afterwards, when it was as difficult to recall the exact sequence and order of events as it would be after the lapse of years. Some of the "youngsters" of those days failed to realize the value their reports would have in after years as the basis for making history. Others were so unfortunate as to have them "lost in transit" so that, although they were duly and truly prepared and forwarded through the official channels, they never found their way into the printed record.

Attention already has been called to the absence of reports of the commanders of the Michigan cavalry brigade regiments for the Gettysburg campaign. General George B. Davis, U.S. army, when in charge of the war records office in Washington, told the writer that he had noticed this want and wondered at it. He could not account for it. A like misfortune befell the same regiments when they participated in the Kilpatrick raid. Only a part of their reports covering the campaign of 1864, including the Trevilian raid, were published. In this respect the Sixth Michigan suffered more than either of the others. Not a single report of the operations of that regiment for that period, appears in the record, though they were certainly made as required. General Custer's reports cover that regiment, of course, as they do the others in the brigade, but it is unfortunate that these are not supplemented by those of the regimental commander. Until the volumes successively appeared, he was not aware of this defect; nor did he ever receive from any source an intimation of it, or have opportunity to supply the deficiency. Hence, it appeals to him as a duty to remedy, so far as it can be done at this late day, the omissions in the record as published of this gallant regiment.

From the beginning to the end of the campaign of 1864, in Virginia—from the Wilderness, May 4, to Cedar Creek, October 19—except for a single month when he was in command of the brigade, the writer was present with and commanded the Sixth Michigan cavalry. Not a single day was he absent from duty, nor did he miss a battle or skirmish in which the regiment was engaged. Reports were made, but as we have shown they did not find their way into the war department. No copies were retained, so there is a hiatus in the record. There are numerous cases of a similar kind. Some officers, there is reason to believe, were smart enough to seek and were given the opportunity to restore the missing links.