USA > Ohio > Four years in the saddle. History of the First Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 > Part 23
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This portion of the army was at that time under the com- mand of Brigadier-General F. W. Lander, a pioneer Californian, and a man of great courage and marked individuality. The squadron was attached to his headquarters and acted as his personal escort, doing messenger and other service in addition to the scouting duties that were imposed upon it.
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Shortly after its arrival at Pawpaw Tunnel a considerable part of Lander's forces proceeded north to Bloomery Furnace, which was then occupied by an outlying post of Jackson's army. Lander marched to surprise it with the First Virginia Loyal Cavalry. Its Colonel, Anisansel, was one of the foreign adven- turers who so largely officered our army at its beginning and were absolutely useless for any purpose except to draw their pay and to wear gold braid. The First Virginia Cavalry, al- though it afterwards proved itself a magnificent regiment, sig- nally failed under the charge of this chattering Colonel, and Lander himself brushed them aside and with his escort of the Ohio squadron captured the post in the most brilliant and dash- ing manner. The squadron retired to camp highly elated and fully satisfied with its General and its own conduct, as the Gen- eral was with it.
Some three days thereafter some twenty of the members of Company A were sent out as a scouting party to the scene of this action. They were under the direct command of Lieuten- ant Jones, who was under the command and direction of Captain Fitz-James O'Brien, of General Lander's staff. Few men now living, except those who are readers of magazines, ever have
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heard him mentioned; but he was one of those brilliant Irish exiles who cast their lot and their fortunes with the young re- public, and who in the ranks of letters and on the field of war have done so much to elevate and adorn the history of the country of their adoption. He was a brilliant young Irish poet and the author of that pathetic poem, "The Shamrock"; and but for his untimely death would have made a great figure in American literature, if he had not become famous as an Irish hero, like Meagher and Corcoran. On that bright winter morn- ing as he was advancing along the winding mountain road of West Virginia, at a turn of the road he came upon a cavalry column; at its head rode one of the most distinguished soldiers of the war, on either side, and who, but for an early death at the hands of Kone's able regiment in the early spring of '62, would undoubtedly have been a greater cavalry leader than the ยท famous Stuart. This was the distinguished Colonel Ashby, a man of aristocratic breeding, singular courage, and a born cav- alry soldier. As he and young O'Brien faced each other he called out, "What troops are you?" And young O'Brien answered, "Union troops, God damn you!" And their pistols cracked in the morning sunlight and O'Brien reeled backward in the saddle with a wound through the body. The little scouting party formed and received the first charge of the enemy, while O'Brien was sent to the rear. It was a running fight for some miles, and the jarring of the horses undoubtedly had its effect upon the latter, so that within forty-eight hours he was dead.
If one will turn to the pages of Harper's Magazine in the early part of '62, he will read some lines written by this young Irish poet that indicate that he had a premonition of his early death upon the field. And yet it was a pity that he did not fall upon some glorious field instead of a lonely scouting expedi- tion. General Lander himself, while the army was on the march to Martinsburg to join General Banks in an attack upon Win- chester, died of disease, and was succeeded by General James Shields, one of the heroes of the Mexican War and famous for the fact that he survived a grape-shot wound of such extent that a silk handkerchief was drawn through his body. It will be remembered of him in the early days when he and Lincoln were at the Illinois bar that he fell a victim to the verse of some witty and mischievous young lady and challenged the future President. That Lincoln bore him no malice and that this did not stand in his way, was proved by the fact that he was ap- pointed to the command of the magnificent division left vacant by the death of General Lander.
Companies A and C were again assigned to duty at the headquarters of General Shields. But this duty by no means exempted them from their share of the dangers and hard fight- ing of that division. Jackson, at the advance of the armies under
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Banks and Shields, fell back beyond Cedar Creek; then Banks' division received orders to march across the Manassa Mountains to Folmouth, thence to reinforce a portion of the army under General Mcclellan. Taking advantage of his absence, Jackson returned to fight the division of Shields. This movement was covered by Ashby's cavalry. And on the twenty-second of March, while reconnoitering, General Shields, in front of Ashby's cav- alry, was struck by a piece of a shell from one of his guns, and he retired and turned over the command to Colonel Nathan W. Kimball, of the Fourteenth Indiana, who assumed command and fought the battle of Kernstown, sometimes called the first battle of Winchester, and the only battle in which Stonewall Jackson was thoroughly beaten. Late in the afternoon the Ohio -brigade, consisting of the Sixty-second, Sixty-sixth, Seventh and Fifth Ohio infantry, were thrown around to the right in a move- ment to turn Jackson's flank. ( The Ohio squadron was placed directly in the rear of it. The 'brigade struck the left of Jack- son's army, stationed behind an ugly stone wall, and at the end of fifteen or twenty minutes' sharp fighting carried it; and a part of the squadron, consisting of about seventy-five troopers, were then ordered to charge. Before them lay a routed army; to their rear was Ashby's cavalry drawn up to cover the retreat; a stone wall, impassable for cavalry, lay in front. The squadron was compelled to charge along the stone wall for half a mile before it found an opening through. Then it plunged into ' the midst of this routed army and followed Jackson's army until near nightfall, capturing over three hundred and twenty-five prisoners.
And here let me lay a little flower upon the grave of the bravest man I ever knew, a Captain in some Virginia regiment, a mere boy, weighing not over one hundred and fifteen pounds, he turned alone to face our column. He seemed to be the only unbeaten man in that entire army. As the advance of the col- umn came up he halted it and kept firing shot after shot until surrounded by nearly a dozen men, when he threw away his empty pistol and pulled his sword and lunged at the men on horseback with the fierceness of an ancient Viking. He fell before the shot of one into whose side he was plunging his sword. He raised himself half way up and threw his sword at him and then started to reload his pistol. One man hastened to disarm him and as he did so, the Confederate hero pulled a ring from his finger, giving an honored Virginian name, and said: "Send this to my mother and tell her I died rather than surrender." He was tenderly cared for by his former foes, but died that night from four or five bullet wounds that he had received in the contest. The writer has seen many a fearless man in the midst of a heated charge who seemed to have no idea of the
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name of fear or death; but he never before or since has seen a man in the midst of panic and rout rise so entirely above it and be so absolutely fearless as this young Virginian soldier. The squadron bivouacked late that night, and in the morn- ing took up the pursuit of Jackson's broken army, which was covered by Ashby's cavalry, charging time and time again the squadron of the Virginia cavalier, and led the Union forces in pursuit of Jackson's army, skirmishing constantly up the valley with Jackson's rear guard, composed of Ashby's cavalry and other troops, driving them back beyond the now famous Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill. Returning to camp at Strasburg, they were sent upon a scout with Colonel D. H. Strother, then on Banks' staff, and who was famous before the war as "Porte Crayon," delineating with pen and pencil those delightful papers in Harper's Magazine known as "Winter Scenes in the South"; we crossed the north branch of the Shenandoah by swimming, the bridges having been burned, and plunged down into the little town of Front Royal. Here Company A drew up beside the long, rambling Virginia hotel of the town; and as the writer of this sat in his saddle beside Wm. Price, who had formerly lived in Virginia, but then lived in Washington C. H., he was aston- ished to hear a rather remarkable looking young woman say from the second story, "Why, Billy Price, is that you here with these nasty Yankees? I'll tell M -- on you!" She having been Price's sweetheart in the days when as little children they trudged together to school. And as we rode away I asked him who it was, and he replied that it was Miss Belle Boyd; she was afterwards known as the famous spy who led Stonewall Jack- son's troops in through Front Royal to the rear of Banks.
After a few days' rest at Strasburg Shield's division was ordered to Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, where McDow- ell's corps then lay, which was then under orders to move toward and join Mcclellan upon the Peninsula. Banks was left to en- trench himself at Strasburg and Front Royal and hold the Shen- nandoah and Luray Valleys. Our division had scarcely reached Falmouth before we heard that Jackson, receiving reinforce- ments, had crept stealthily up the Luray Valley, struck the First Maryland Loyal Infantry at Front Royal and sent Banks broken and defeated across the river to Hancock, Md. This relieved Richmond for the time being and diverted the column of Mc- Dowell and Shields from its flank attack, and they were ordered to the valley again, toward which Fremont was already march- ing from West Virginia for the capture of Jackson.
Fremont arrived at Strasburg about the first of June, just as Shield's division reached Front Royal, and Jackson slipped in between the two, Fremont following up the Main Valley, and the First Ohio squadron, with Shield's, following up the Luray Val- ley. Neither Shields nor Fremont were in communication one
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with the other and the Massanutten Mountains lay between them, and Company A was thrown out through the gap at New Market and opened up communications, unfortunately too late; for upon the eighth the battle of Cross Keys was fought, and upon the ninth the bridge was wrested from the First Virginia Cavalry of Shield's division, and two of his brigades under Col- onel Carroll of the Eighth Ohio were badly beaten.
Thence Jackson marched through the mountains, struck McClellan and relieved Richmond. In the meantime the squad- ron, with the balance of the division, was ordered to join the army which Pope was then concentrating beyond the Manassas Mountains for the protection of Washington. The squadron was immediately attached to Pope's headquarters and took a very active part as messengers, couriers, staff and general orderlies in that most momentous and tragic campaign. They served at the battle of Cedar or Slaughter Mountain and were with Pope in his remarkable defense of the line of the Rappahannock, where the line was finally turned by Jackson's marching north and turning through the Manassas Mountains and striking the line of Pope's army and Pope's communications at Briston Sta- tion, near Centerville. They accompanied Pope as he abandoned the line of the Rappahannock and concentrated his forces on the old battle-field of Bull Run and accepted battle in the firm belief that he would be able to destroy Jackson before he was reinforced by Lee. This he would no doubt have done had it not been for the treachery of Fitz-John Porter and the inaction and jealousy of Mcclellan and the tardy march of Franklin's corps. This turned what would have been a brilliant victory and decisive victory into an almost fatal defeat. And the squadron that night was amongst the last to fall back from this ill-fated field, and marched with the defeated army back to the defenses of Wash- ington, where Pope was relieved. Thence it moved with the reorganized army into Maryland and participated in the battle of Antietam.
In the fall and winter of '62 it was attached to Stahl's car alry and was stationed near Fairfax C. H. while Burnside was confronting Lee near Fredericksburg. In the latter part of May, 1862, Lee, who had been reorganizing his forces after the battle of Chancellorsville, took advantage of the mustering out of the two years' troops and the depletion of the army at Falmouth to threaten Washington and make his ill-fated Pennsylvania campaign. Hooker then performed the best service that was ever done for the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac by giving it daring and efficient cavalry leaders. Stahl was replaced by the daring Kilpatrick; the gallant Captain Farnesworth was made Brigadier-General and sent to command one of the bri- gades; and the brilliant Custer, then out a boy of twenty-three, but a magnificent and knightly soldier, to the command of the
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other brigade. Then began the service upon which the Ohio squadron mostly prides itself. They were attached to Kil- patrick's headquarters, who always, upon the skirmish line, or in a saber charge, never lost an opportunity of throwing his favorite squadron into the fight to carry some part of the line or dislodge some ugly knot of skirmishers. It was with him covering the front of Hooker's army while Hooker covered Wash- ington on that remarkable campaign from Falmouth to Warren- ton, from Warrenton to Aldie, from Aldie skirting the entire Blue Ridge to the upper Potomac, keeping always in front of Lee and foiling every endeavor of his to turn his flank or thrust his columns between him and Washington, until Lee finally gave up the endeavor and started on that wild raid into Maryland and through a part of Southern Pennsylvania, burning Cham- bersburg and threatening Harrisburg. The cavalry under Kil- patrick and Buford moved rapidly forward to Fredericksburg, Md., from Fredericksburg to Emmetsburg, Md., from there to Hanover and Abbotstown, Pa., covering the front of Meade's army and trying to definitely locate Lee. Here Hooker was re. lieved and Meade took command. At Hanover Kilpatrick struck Stuart, who was absent from Lee's army, and a brilliant cavalry fight occurred between a portion of Kilpatrick's division and a part of Stuart's army in its very streets, which ended in Stuart's repulse and the capture of a rebel flag. The second day there- after Reynolds and Buford developed Lee's army in front of Gettysburg and opened the fight on that glorious and immortal field. Kilpatrick's division was sent to our extreme right at Hagerstown, where it attacked and had a fight with Stuart's cavalry on the night of the second, in which the squadron, as usual, participated.
On the morning of the third it was drawn up and placed on the extreme left beyond Big Round Top, where a brigade under the gallant but ill-fated Farnsworth, charging the rebel in- fantry behind stone walls, leaving its brilliant leader dead upon the field. After the charge of Picket's* division hostilities ceased between the armies, both looked after the dead and wounded on the fourth, and on the evening of that day Lee began to withdraw through the mountains toward the fords of the upper Potomac. A portion of the army was ordered in direct pursuit, and the balance marched toward Hagerstown with the intention of trying to intercept Lee. Near midnight on the night of the fourth Kilpatrick's division overtook one of the rear columns of Lee's army guarding a wagon-train and some of his wounded. It was at the summit of a small mountain, near the Pennsylvania and Maryland lines, and at a point called Monterey; a two-gun battery and other rebel troops were cover-
*Private J. L. Thornton was an orderly for Gen. Hayes, commanding a division of the 2nd Corps, and during Pickett's charge behaved with such extreme gallantry as to be promoted to a lieu- tenancy on the recommendation of Gen. Hayes.
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ing the rear. Two different regiments of Custer's brigade had been ordered to the charge, but were repulsed. Kilpatrick then ordered the Ohio squadron to lead, supported by the First Vir- ginia Union Cavalry. No greater test of men's courage could have been had than to have led in this night attack. It had been raining hard. The night was extremely dark; and the white turnpike and the tops of the white wagons were all that could be plainly seen. The squadron, under the lead of Captain Jones, charged down the turnpike, received the fire of the rear guard, plunged down the mountain road alongside the wagons and followed it for seven miles under a scattering fire from wagons and mountain side when they reached the head of the train. They were loyally supported by the First Virginia, and the balance of Kilpatrick's division followed at its leisure. This charge, taking into account the darkness, the unknown numbers and character of the foe, was as brilliant an attack as was ever made within the history of mounted warfare. Its net results were a large wagon-train and over a thousand prisoners, beside the wounded that were accompanying the train. That the squad- ron escaped with four or five killed and wounded and was not annihilated was due in part to the darkness and in part to the demoralized condition of the enemy.
The squadron was engaged daily in skirmishing with the enemy, and on the eleventh of July drove Stuart's cavalry back beyond Hagerstown toward the Potomac River. In the early part of this fight Kilpatrick had formed one of his brigades upon one crest, while a brigade of Stuart was upon the opposite crest; midway between the two some forty or fifty skirmishers behind a stone wall were making it. very hot for the staff and the headquarters. Kilpatrick gave Captain Jones an order to drive them out, and about forty men of Company A, under his leadership, made a brilliant dash and drove them back so quickly that they had not time to remount, capturing twenty-six of them before they could rejoin the main body. On the thirteenth the squadron operated on the left of Lee's army, and Myron Judy, a most gallant and fearless young soldier, about eighteen years of age, who was then carrying the division flag, was mor- tally wounded, but refused to give up the colors until he had placed them again into the General's own hands.
On the morning of the fourteenth it was found that Lee, during the night time, had abandoned his entrenchments, and the cavalry were ordered rapidly to the front, picking up strag- glers by the hundreds. Sam Gillespie, the bugler of Company , a little in advance, came upon a single gun accompanied by a Sergeant and his men, which in some way had been stalled or fallen behind. He rode up to the Sergeant and ordered him to surrender and turn around the gun. The Sergeant said, "What! six men surrender to one!" Gillespie said, "If you don't sur-
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render I will blow your brains out!" And at the moment the head of the squadron appeared and the Sergeant and his gunners surrendered to Gillespie.
The squadron took part in the brilliant cavalry fight at Falling Water, where a part of Kilpatrick's division in a mounted charge captured Pettigrew's brigade in earthworks that was cov- ering the remnant of Lee's army, killing its commander and taking over a thousand prisoners, inflicting the last blow upon the broken and defeated army which, thirty days before, had marched with flaunting banners and gallant tread on its mis- sion of insolent invasion.
Lee's army fell back and entrenched themselves along the line of the Rapidan, with Stuart's cavalry in front of his army on the line of the Rappahannock. Meade's army occupied the country extending from Warrenton to Bristow Station, down toward Falmouth, with his cavalry covering our left toward Harwood's Church.
On the morning of the thirteenth of September, 1863, Bu- ford's cavalry division crossed at the Rappahannock ford, on the line of the railway, and Kilpatrick's division at Kelly's ford, seven miles below, and took a road converging toward the one taken by Buford near Brandy Station. As the division emerged on the old Brandy Station cavalry battle-ground, we found our old foe in front of us, and it was then a strife between these two rival divisions to see which could drive the enemy the fast- est. Buford upon the right, and Kilpatrick upon the left, with cavalry pennons flying, batteries firing, and squadrons charging, kept the enemy moving rapidly toward Culpepper. Brandy Sta- tion is an ideal battle-ground, and was fought over time and again by the rebel and Union cavalry. Culpepper C. H. is nearly three miles from Brandy Station. Off to the left as you go toward Culpepper lies Stevensburg, and about a mile and a half beyond Culpepper. Culpepper and Brandy Station and Stevens- burg form the three points of an irregular triangle. In the morn- ing, before reaching Buford, Kilpatrick had ordered a couple of regiments of the Michigan brigade to occupy a point at or near Stevensburg. Believing that they were in possession of this point, and seeing how rapidly he was driving the enemy, he con- ceived the idea of having these two regiments barricade them- selves across the road that leads from Culpepper to the Rapidan, and to hold it with their Spencer rifles while Buford and the balance of his division charged the enemy in front. It was a brilliant idea, and if successful, would have insured the capture of a large part of Stuart's command, or its complete rout.
As we drove the enemy from Brandy Station and prepared for the final attack near Culpepper C. H., he ordered Major Bacon to take an orderly with him and ride over to Stevensburg and order these two regiments to throw themselves across the road
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leading to Raccoon Ford on the Rapidan, barricade themselves and hold it to the last extremity. He took with him, as an or- derly, Private Yeoman.
After riding directly toward Stevensburg a mile and a half from our flank, the Major noticed little squads of troops over in a field, between half and three-quarters of a mile away, that seemed to be facing in the opposite direction from that which the Michigan troops should face. He rode down to a house and asked a negro whether they were "Johnnies." The negro laughed and said, "I dunno, boss." While the Major was reconnoitering at one point, his orderly asked permission to ride down the lane and examine from that point. The troops that they were first looking at were up to the right of the lane in a field, and the orderly had no idea that he was in any danger from them, as there was a considerable fence between them and a fair field behind him toward our left flank. As he rode down the lane for a couple of hundred yards, watching them, he suddenly noticed that there were a couple of soldiers riding in front of him, two or three hundred yards ahead, and he followed along behind, unable to ascertain from their uniform whether they were Union or rebel soldiers, as they had on blue pants, and a mixed blue and gray uniform of English cloth. He followed them for about one hundred and fifty yards, when he saw them dismount in a persimmon thicket; and, lying asleep around the smoldering embers of the morning's fire, were a half dozen , or more soldiers in the well-known butternut. He had seen enough and turned to go back. But just as he turned he saw another knot of about fifteen or twenty of the same men up on the hill to the left, whom he had not noticed, and who were then a little nearer the gap where he came in than he was. Two soldiers were coming therefrom directly toward him. It struck him at once that they had come to see who he was. For- tunately, that morning he had heard Kilpatrick questioning a prisoner and found that the two divisions in front of us were commanded by Hampton and Robertson. So he rode a little way toward them, determined to commence the cross-exami- nation himself rather than await it; and he hallooed out, "Are you the pickets of Robertson's division?" "No," said they. "Then you belong to Hampton's?"
"Yes," said they.
"What in hell are you doing here?" said he.
"On picket," said they.
"On picket, the devil! Don't you know that our men are being driven back yonder and you will be cut off and nipped!"
By this time they and the orderly were within fifty feet of each other. One of them replied, as if still doubting and ques- tioning, "Are those you'ns men yonder?"
"No," said the orderly, "they are God-damn Yankees, and
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I came over to order your company in. Tell the Lieutenant to take his company back immediately upon the Stevensburg road."
"We will," said they; and turned around and went toward the Lieutenant, while the orderly started leisurely over toward the gap where he had entered the lane, met the Major coming and said to him: "Major, they are 'Johnnies'; I have been talk- ing with them."
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