The morning of May 5th opened calm and still, and there was no sign by which men could judge of the bloody day before them, for literally all was “quiet along the lines,” but the quiet of the scene was oppressive in its extreme stillness, and the sun rolled like an immense ball of barely red hot iron, seeming to be almost touching the tops of the pine trees under which lay the “Laurel Brigade,” unrefreshed by even the quiet repose of the past night, and many remarks were made about the singular appearance of the Day God as he waded higher and higher through the still, smoke-laden air of that battle-morn, some of the men repeating the Napoleonic exclamation, “remember the sun of Austerlitz,” and Colonel White declaring that it presaged a bloody day.
Soon after sunrise the command moved slowly down the Cataupin road, and in an hour the dismounted men were skirmishing with the enemy in the dense thickets of pine and undergrowth which closely bordered the road on either side and extended towards the river by Shady Grove and White Hall, but the battalion was not engaged, although rapidly marched from wing to 259wing, expecting each moment to be thrown upon the Yankee line, and not knowing just where the blue would break through the gray and compel a cavalry charge to drive them back, for the firing each moment grew in volume and intensity until the fight raged fiercely all along the lines. At this time the battalion was out of ammunition, and although details had been sent to the ordnance trains frequently, they always returned with the same aggravating report that none was to be procured, as the cavalry train had not yet come up, and under the circumstances the men watched with a far deeper interest than usual the progress of the battle. About the middle of the day Capt. Emmett, Rosser’s A. A. General, and Jim Robinson, the General’s pet courier, came from the front, both badly wounded, and told White’s men that the Yankees were reinforcing and they would soon have to charge, but about 2 o’clock General Rosser succeeded in driving the Yankees from their position, and at once pushed his brigade rapidly forward. Just as the battalion came in range of the enemy’s batteries the column halted, and for several minutes the situation was decidedly hot, the shells exploding precisely at that point, and causing the loss of several men and horses; but pretty soon one of the advance regiments drove off the annoying battery, and the whole column moved quickly forward over the Po river, where they struck a considerable 260force of the enemy, which, after a sharp fight, was completely routed, and Rosser’s men followed the retreating Yankees at a gallop, by some plantation roads and swamp paths, far to the left, bringing up at a body of woods on a hill about a mile from the river they had just crossed, and still on the Cataupin road, not far from Todd’s Tavern, having made a circuit in the chase of about three miles.
The men had become very much scattered in the rapid ride through such a country, and White’s people, being in the rear, were of course worse strung out than any others, in fact when the head of the first squadron (which by the evolutions on the other side of the river had been thrown in rear of the battalion) came up to the woods, where a division of the enemy’s cavalry had met and engaged the brigade in a fierce and stubborn fight, there were scarcely a dozen men in sight, and Capt. Myers called a halt in order to allow the others time to close up, as the front of the battalion was hid from view in the thick woods, but Gen. Rosser, who was sitting on his horse near the road, listening to the rapid firing in front of him, called out, excitedly, "Let ’em out, Myers; let ’em out! Old White’s in there, knocking them right and left." And with a wild yell Company A dashed forward, wheeling to the left as it reached the road, the Captain supposing he could thus come down upon the right flank of the enemy, 261but they had scarcely gone one hundred yards when a piece of artillery, hidden in the pines on the road side, blazed a storm of grape into the column, which for a minute checked its progress, and by the time the squadron was ready to charge the masked battery, it was limbered up and moved rapidly away, barely escaping capture. The first squadron then joined the battalion, finding it hotly engaged with fully six times its number, and for want of ammunition being slowly driven back.
The enemy had attempted repeatedly to charge, but was met and repulsed every time, and in this rally and retreat style of fighting, individuals on both sides displayed great skill and courage, but the fight was altogether on horseback, and as in the days when Cavalier and Puritan met in the conflict long ago, so it was now with their descendants, and the superiority of Southern horsemanship gave the advantage to that side, but it was the only one it did possess. Many prisoners were taken by White’s men, and the first demand was always for their cartridges and their arms afterwards, and every bullet thus taken from the captured Yankees was soon returned to their comrades, minus the powder however.
After an hour of hard fighting, a flank movement forced them almost to the edge of the woods on the hill before spoken of, and the men, discouraged because of their lack of ammunition, 262were ready to give up the fight, which the enemy did not show much disposition to press further, but the officers rallied them for another trial.
The battalion was drawn up alongside of the road, and as a regiment of Yankees galloped down in their front, Capt. Myers turned to Col. White, and asked, "Colonel, how can we fight those fellows with no ammunition? We’d as well have rocks as empty pistols." But the Colonel replied so grimly, “What are our sabres for?” that the men drew their blades without any hesitation, and charged square at the Yankee column, which wheeled about and retired faster than it came, closely pursued by the “Comanches,” but after going about half a mile a force of the enemy was observed moving through the pines to the right and rear of the battalion, and Capt. Myers, with Jack Dove and Jim Whaley, turned towards them and firing with captured pistols as rapidly as possible, called loudly for “first squadron,” “second squadron,” &c., to “forward” and “charge,” making so much noise in the operation, that the Yankees halted and opened a sharp fire upon what they supposed to be at least a rebel regiment, and shortly after, the Colonel returned with the battalion and the enemy retired over the hill.
This ended the fighting for that evening, with the exception of some slight skirmishing as the brigade retired over the Po river to Shady Grove, where it encamped for the night.
263The battalion did not number over one hundred and fifty men in the last charge, about twenty having been killed and wounded, and quite a number (as is usually the case) were reported in the list of “missing in action;” but only one was never heard of afterwards, (John J. Clendenning of Co. C,) and it was supposed that he had fallen into the hands of the enemy after being wounded, and died either in hospital or prison.
The hard work for both men and horses, had told grievously on the little band of “Comanches,” and they all hoped that they would not be called upon to leave their camp the next day, but by sunrise on the morning of the 6th, the bugles were sounding to horse, and very soon the old Ashby brigade was moving on the same Cataupin road towards Todd’s Tavern—names long ago made familiar and famous in the annals of the war.
After crossing again the Po river, on the same crazy, ricketty bridge, over that chocolate-colored stream, which with the “Matt,” “Tay,” and “Nye” rivers, form the now celebrated “Mattapony,” the column turned to the left, leaving the battle-ground of the preceding evening about half a mile to the right, and when the gates, fields and fences of the Chancellor plantation had been cleared, and the brigade was marching easily and freely through the open pine country bordering on the “Wilderness,” General Rosser ordered Col. 264White to “send his best squadron to the front,” when the Colonel told Capt. Myers to take his company and report to the General. As before remarked, Company A was now the first squadron, it being a large and unusually full company, and the small company (D) which formerly with A composed the squadron having been disbanded, and also, besides thus being the easiest handled, was at the head of the column, causing it to be selected to fill the rather invidious order of the General.
As the Captain rode forward and reported for special duty, the General gave his order, which was, verbatim, "Myers, move your people down this road and run over everything you come to. I’ll send a pilot with you." “The people” moved in lively style along the road, which now bore to the right and more in the direction of the previous day’s fighting, when they commenced to pass evidences of panic on the part of the “boys in blue,” in the shape of gum cloths, blankets, carbines, hats and saddles, and thinking that as Yankee plunder was plenty, the men who left it were out of the way, they moved too fast, and the General sent one of his staff with orders to go slower and not get too far from the brigade.
At length, after crossing a swampy stream and marching quietly along the left of a sedgy old field, in which some Yankees were discovered about a hundred and fifty yards to the right, and 265who began sending their compliments from Spencer and Sharpe, the squadron found that their road forked at the corner of the field, and not knowing which to take, Myers halted and called for his pilot, but not finding him, Jim Harper, in his peculiar style, reported that "the dam ’scape gallus had picked up a saddle at the branch, and as soon as the first shot was fired in the field had carried it to the rear like the devil."
The men in the field had now stopped firing and gone into the woods, and Myers asked Lieut. Conrad which road he thought they had better take, to which the Lieutenant replied "that it didn’t make much difference, so they got to the Yankees," when the Captain turned the head of the column to the right, and with the command, “Forward, boys; and get ready to fight,” marched down the side of the field about a hundred yards, and looking back saw Col. White, with the battalion, moving quietly from the woods at the branch and turning into the field. Fifty yards further brought the first squadron to a point where the road turned abruptly from the field into the woods, and with a rattling, whizzing blaze of carbines they were received by a squadron of the enemy not twenty steps distant. The fire was instantly returned, and a charge made, when the Yankees broke and as rapidly as possible fell back upon their supporting regiment, 266which in turn gave way before the dashing charge of the victorious rebels.
Just here the enemy moved forward a heavy line of cavalry, said by prisoners to be two divisions, and Col. White went in with his battalion in his usual “neck or nothing” style, but not being supported, was in a few minutes so roughly handled that it was with great difficulty his people got clear of the swarming masses of Yankees that lined all the space from woods to stream. The Colonel’s horse was killed, the Adjutant’s horse was killed, and in trying to save his papers which were fastened on the saddle, that gallant officer was captured.
Several men were killed and wounded in this desperate charge, and the enemy dashed after the retreating Confederates until met by the 11th Regiment, which only checked them and gave way when the 12th and 7th Regiments were, in detail, met and driven back by the overwhelming forces of the Yankees. But just at this moment the ubiquitous Col. Chew threw his horse artillery into position and poured such a storm of grape and shell into the crowded columns of blue-jackets, that they were in turn forced to retire and let their own artillery come into the fight. The Yankee batteries were posted in a semi-circle, with their right wing thrown forward, and the fiery Capt. Thompson had a red-hot position for his 267guns, but like the hero he was he held it, and his cannoniers, like smiths at their forges, labored incessantly in the unequal fight, amid the baleful death-fires that surrounded them. There are two expressions in the military vocabulary that describe situations usually fata............