On hearing this, Kilpatrick quietly put a house between himself and the aforesaid masked battery. When our artillery came up with the cavalry, I was sent to conduct a section of it to a certain place behind the houses, but which admitted of the guns pointing between two adjoining houses.
The colored people who lived in them gave the gunners the exact location of the Rebels, and in less time than it takes for me to describe it, our section let them have a dose of the medicine they intended for us.
The Rebels were so surprised they did not have time to return the salute, but scampered away as fast as they could. At this, the entire colored population of the town, which had assembled, broke out in the wildest yells of delight I had ever heard.
Custer, accompanied by a few officers of his Staff dashed up to Kilpatrick, who, by the way, was the senior, or the General in Command, and in his eager, boyish way, said: "General, hadn't I better go down below here and see if we can't find some of 'those people'?"
General Lee never called the Union Army Federals or Yankees—it was always "those people."
Kilpatrick laughed as he said something to Custer that was not intended for his superior, General Meade's ears.
Custer, in his nervous manner, again suggested going after some of "those people" down below.
As if to gratify Custer's eagerness, not with any expectation of finding an enemy, Kilpatrick indifferently gave his consent, and Custer, turning to the Staff-officers, who were with him, gave a few orders and dashed off. I followed Custer at a gallop.
We rode three or four miles perhaps, when we reached some of our own cavalry and infantry.
This was in the neighborhood of Falling Waters, and here, on the Potomac river, almost the same place I had, as a Scout, crossed into Dixie a year previously. We will, for the present, say good-by to the grand old Army of the Potomac.