In 1858 he accompanied his regiment, under the command of Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, in the expedition to Utah against the Mormons, taking an active part in that campaign, marching from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake City, and then, when the troubles were quelled there, traveling on foot to Fort Benicia, Cal. While on the Pacific coast he received a letter from his father, written January 1, 1859, in which he said:
I can not express the gratification I felt in meeting Col. May in New York, and at the encomiums he passed upon your soldiership, zeal, and devotion to your duty. But I was more pleased at the report of your conduct. I always thought and said there was stuff in you for a good soldier, and I trust you will prove it.
Resigning his commission in the Army, he came home to be married to his cousin, a Miss Wickham, and settled down as a farmer at the "White House" (where Washington met Martha Custis and was married), a large estate on the Pamunkey River, left him by his maternal grandfather, G.W. Park Custis, of Arlington.
When that irrepressible conflict of 1861 was upon us, and Virginia called upon her sons to defend her soil, he, sharing the faith of his fathers, in the belief that his allegiance was due to his State, quickly raised a company of cavalry, and was attached to the Army of Northern Virginia. Serving in every grade successively from captain to major-general of cavalry, he led his regiment in the famous raid around McClellan's army, and was an active participant in all those brilliant achievements which made the cavalry service so proficient.
In that terrific fight which occurred at Brandy Station, in June, 1863, he was most severely wounded, and taken to the residence of Gen. William C. Wickham, in Hanover County, where he was made a prisoner by a raiding party, and was carried off, at the expense of great personal suffering, to Fort Monroe. From the latter place he was conveyed to Fort Lafayette, where he was confined until March, 1864, and treated with great severity, being held, with Capt. R.H. Tyler, of the Eighth Virginia Regiment, under sentence of death, as hostages for two Federal officers who were prisoners in Richmond, and whom it was thought would be executed for some retaliatory measure.
Exchanged in the spring of 1864, he returned, to find his young wife and children dead, his beautiful home burned to the ground, his whole estate devastated and laid waste by the ruthless hand of war; and yet almost his first act on reaching Richmond was to go to Libby Prison, visit the two Federal officers for whom he had been held as hostage, and who, like himself, had been under apprehension of being hung, and shake hands with and congratulate them.
Immediately joining his command, he led his division in every engagement from the Rapidan to Appomattox, where, with his father, the greatest soldier of modern times, he surrendered to the inevitable.
In a letter written by one of the most brilliant cavalry generals of the late war, in speaking of Gen. W.H.F. Lee, he uses this language:
He was a zealous, conscientious, brave, and intelligent soldier, who fully discharged all of his duties. He was one of those safe, sound, judicious officers, and you always felt when you sent instructions to him that they were going to be obeyed promptly and to the letter.
What greater tribute could be paid a soldier?