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

by James Harvey Kidd

When Custer approached the station he found Rosser in his way on his front and right flank. Fitzhugh Lee, coming from Louisa Courthouse, also attacked his left flank. For a time there was a melee which had no parallel in the annals of cavalry fighting in the civil war, unless it may have been at Brandy Station or Buckland Mills. Custer's line was in the form of a circle and he was fighting an enterprising foe on either flank and both front and rear. Fitzhugh Lee charged and captured a section of Pennington's battery. The Seventh Michigan led by Brewer recaptured it. Fragments of all the regiments in the brigade rallied around Custer for the mounted fighting, of which there was plenty, while the First and Sixth dismounted took care of the rear. Custer was everywhere present giving directions to his subordinate commanders, and more than one mounted charge was participated in by him in person.

Torbert's attack with Merritt's and Devin's brigades was at length successful in routing Hampton, whose men were driven into and through Custer's lines. Many of them were made prisoners. An officer and twelve men belonging to the Seventh Georgia cavalry, making for the rear as they supposed, came into the arms of the Sixth Michigan skirmishers at one time. The officer gave up his revolver to me and it proved to be a very fine five shooting arm of English make.

In the final stages of the battle, Gregg concentrated against Fitzhugh Lee, Torbert effected his junction with Custer, and the latter was extricated from his difficult and dangerous predicament, after performing prodigies of valor. The lines changed front and the confederates were driven across the railroad, Hampton towards Gordonsville, Lee to the eastward. The two did not succeed in coming together that night, and Lee was obliged to make a wide detour in order to reunite with his chief on the afternoon of the next day, Sunday, June 12.

The entire command encamped on the battle field in the neighborhood of Trevilian Station for the night. The next morning Gregg was set at work tearing up the railroad toward Louisa Courthouse. The First division was given a rest until the afternoon when, at about three o'clock, although it was Sunday, the order came for the First division to proceed in the direction of Gordonsville. In the meantime, the forces of Hampton and Lee had united and, as will be seen, had planned to stop Sheridan's further progress at all hazards. There is some reason to believe that a part of Breckinridge's infantry had come out from Gordonsville to reinforce Hampton. Such was the impression at the time, and one at least, of Sheridan's commanders, states in his report that he was confronted by infantry. The writer is of the opinion that the "infantry" was Butler's dismounted cavalry which, when in a good position as they were that day, could do as good fighting as any infantry in the confederate service.

The Michigan brigade moved out first and the Sixth had the advance. The order was to proceed to a certain point named and then halt until the division closed up. Memory does not recall what the place was, but is quite clear as to that being the specific direction given by General Custer to the officer in command of the advance regiment. We had gone but a short distance, not more than a mile or two at most, when the advance guard reported the enemy entrenched across the way. Skirmishing began at once between our mounted men in front and dismounted confederates behind breastworks of considerable strength. A squadron was deployed and Sergeant Avery was directed to make his way far enough into the woods to find, if possible, what we had in our front. He came back in about ten minutes and reported that the breastworks in our immediate front were thoroughly manned, and that he had seen a column of at least a thousand men moving into the entrenchments on the enemy's right, in front of our left flank. He was sent back to give Custer this information, and the general came up and ordered the entire regiment to be dismounted to fight on foot. The Sixth was put in on the right of the road and directly thereafter the Seventh was sent in on the left. It did not take long to demonstrate that two regiments were not enough and the First and Fifth went into the action on the right of the Sixth. Then Torbert reinforced the line with the Reserve brigade and a portion of the Second, all under Merritt. The entire division became engaged. Several assaults were made upon the confederate line but without success. They were in each instance repulsed. Fitzhugh Lee got in on the right flank of the division and inflicted severe damage upon the Reserve brigade. We have never been able to understand why, if it was intended to break the enemy's line, Gregg's division was not brought into the engagement to protect that flank. General Merritt in his report intimates that he had to do more than his share of fighting; that when the Reserve brigade advanced to the assault on the right it was supposed that the attack would be pressed on the left; that it was not so pressed and that his brigade suffered unduly on that account. This is another case of a man being unable to see all that is going on in a battle. The Michigan brigade was on the left of the line. It was the first brigade engaged. It began the fight and stayed in it till the end. Harder fighting has rarely been done than that which fell to the Michigan men in that battle. Several attempts were made to drive the enemy from their front. The First Michigan especially made a charge across an open field in the face of a terrible fire from behind breastworks, going half way across before they were repulsed. When the First Michigan could not stand before a storm of bullets, no other regiment in the cavalry corps need try. That is a certainty. The losses in killed and wounded were very severe, as will be shown in a table printed at the end of this chapter.

SERGEANT AVERY

The fighting continued till ten o'clock that night, when Sheridan decided to withdraw and abandon the expedition. It is worthy of remark that the entire division was unable to advance one inch beyond the place where the advance guard first encountered the enemy and where Sergeant Avery made the reconnoissance which revealed to General Custer the true situation. Poor Avery was killed while doing his duty as he always did in the very front of the battle in the place of greatest danger. Captain Lovell and Lieutenant Luther Canouse of the Sixth were wounded; Captain Carr, and Lieutenants Pulver and Warren of the First Michigan were killed, and Captain Duggan and Lieutenant Bullock of the same regiment wounded. Captains Hastings and Dodge of the Fifth were wounded; also Lieutenant Colonel Brewer of the Seventh was wounded on the eleventh.

The casualties in the two days' fighting at Trevilian Station were very severe. The losses in killed and died from wounds received in the action aggregated in the brigade forty one, as follows:[28]