general rosser ordered the “comanches” to remain at the po river bridge during the 7th, and guard it from the attacks of the enemy, who, still posted in the woods where the hard fighting was done on the evening of the 5th, showed a disposition to take the bridge. here the colonel had some breastworks thrown up, and leaving capt. myers with company a to hold the bridge, he attempted a flank movement to the right with the remainder of his battalion, hoping to capture some horses, but was unsuccessful; and during his absence the yankees made a demonstration with dismounted cavalry on the little force at the bridge, which, however, held the position, although vigorously shelled for some time. one man was wounded slightly, and on the return of the colonel, with a piece of artillery, they gave it up, and allowed white’s men to rest quietly.
on sunday morning, may 8th, the whole brigade moved early and commenced skirmishing near todd’s tavern, but the enemy seemed to be shifting, and not quite willing to make a stand anywhere until about 10 o’clock, when we came up with them in force and strongly posted in a heavy body of timber.
278here all the men with long-range guns were dismounted and ordered into the woods, lieut. thos. w. white, of company c, commanding the sharpshooters of the battalion, and pretty soon the firing showed that a sharp fight was going on in the wilderness.
in a few minutes the mounted men were ordered forward to charge, but the enemy retired beyond the head waters and swamp of the nye river.
as the battalion moved forward they met some of the sharpshooters bearing to the rear all that was left of their accomplished commander, lieut. white, who had been shot dead by a rifleman hid in the woods, as he was arranging that part of the line immediately under his supervision. he was a native of loudoun county, and as lieut. colonel of the militia at the breaking out of the war, had done all that lay in his power to aid virginia in defending her border against the northman’s ire, but at the time of the evacuation of manassas and all the lines of defense held in connection with it by the southern army, he and mr. a. m. vandevanter were engaged in the work of trying to raise a company of volunteer cavalry, and not being posted as to the sudden fall back, was unfortunately left in the hostile lines of geary before he knew it; but when capt. grubb commenced to recruit for his company, lieut. col. white was the first to join him, and at the organization was appointed orderly sergeant, discharging his duties 279faithfully until the death of capt. grubb and consequent promotion of the other officers caused his election to the office of second lieutenant.
lieut. white and the colonel were not on entirely friendly terms, for the reason that when the latter was raising his company, the lieutenant caused some opposition, by objecting to the men enlisted by the colonel being excused from duty as militia until the company was organized and in actual service.
this caused a coolness which was not fully dissipated until, in the tremendous battle of brandy station, lieut. white displayed such conspicuous gallantry that he completely gained the colonel’s confidence and good will, and was ever after considered by his commander one of the best officers in the battalion, as he fully deserved to be.
one little incident connected with this, his last day of life on earth, would seem to indicate that he felt a presentiment of his fate, for while riding down to his death, he and capt. myers were discussing an order of the general’s to the effect that the battalion should be armed with long-range guns, and both agreed that they very much objected, for the reason that they disliked fighting on foot, but the lieutenant remarked that if he should ever be dismounted and sent into that wilderness country there to fight, that he would certainly be killed, for it would so excite him that he would not understand how to act; and when 280the order was given for the men to dismount, and he was designated to lead them, he said to the captain as he passed to the front, in allusion to their conversation, "good-bye, frank; i am going, and don’t expect to see you any more;" and there we saw for the last time the gay, high-spirited and popular lieut. tom white.
from this time until the 21st, the battalion was occupied, with the brigade, in picketing and skirmishing, varied with occasional scouts, in one of which the colonel took a part of his command by the left flank to the rear of grant’s army, visiting three large field hospitals, in which lay thousands of wounded men whose discharges from the service had been issued from the muzzles of confederate rifles, and on this trip the boys broke up nearly 2,000 stand of arms. all this while the infantry were passing through that tremendous ordeal of fire which has made the spottsylvania wilderness famous for all time in the bloody history which marks the progress of the world from the days of old down to the present, and if ever hard, stubborn fighting deserved success, the army of lee in those may days of 1864 earned it, for every day the same awful roar of battle rolled along the lines, and every night came the same encouraging reports of the enemy repulsed with heavy slaughter, until it was a given up point that soon grant would stop his “hammering,” for the good reason that the hammer was shivered to atoms on the 281solid anvil of southern endurance and grit, but the national butcher kept throwing his doomed legions upon the invincible veterans of gen. lee, and supplying, from the teeming millions of yankeeland and germany, the places of the slaughtered men in blue, and day after day the hateful gridiron of the yankee nation floated along the rappahannock, telling that the war was not over yet.
on the 15th of may, gen. rosser marched to enan church, near the plank road, where he fought hard for an hour, to find if the enemy had infantry in that neighborhood, which proved to be the case.
some of the boys said he only took the brigade down to hold the usual sunday morning service, as the general had recently joined the episcopal church, but others remarked that he made a mistake in the prayer book, as colt’s was not generally used in that church. the night before had been spent by company a on picket in the wilderness, and as the author witnessed the performance, it will not be amiss to describe it, showing as it does one part of the soldier’s duty, and the manner in which it was performed in that god-forsaken country which is fit for nothing but a battle-field, and the worst one imaginable for that. the company reached the picket line on the cataupin road about dark, and the night set in rainy, and black as erebus 282by the time the posts were established. there it was necessary to picket all around, and having at length got everything arranged, the reserve lay down on pieces of cracker boxes, an immense number of which were scattered around, for headquarters was established at what had been a field hospital for the 5th and 6th of may.
nobody was permitted to unsaddle, of course, and without blankets the night was unpleasant enough, but pretty soon firing was heard towards the river, and by the time the pickets came in the company was mounted and ready for action, but no enemy appeared, and soon the line was re-established, only to be broken again in a few minutes, and the same ceremony of preparation for fight gone through with, which ended as before, without it.
this was done several times, and finally two men who never yet experienced the sensation of fear, were placed at the same post, which appeared to be the very centre of the wilderness. these two men were john w. white and john chadwell, and pretty soon firing was heard at their post, when all the pickets came in except the two who were supposed to have done the shooting, and after waiting in line of battle for some time, capt. myers ordered the corporal, to whose relief they belonged, to ride out and see what was the matter, but that gentleman flatly refused to go, declaring his belief that the yankees had killed the 283pickets and were waiting now to shoot whoever went to look for the missing men. after a little hesitation, the captain concluded to go himself, and riding cautiously along the crooked woods-path soon came up to the two men, who halted him promptly and showed that they were up to their duty, and here the captain found that these two men had captured a squad of the enemy’s sharp-shooters, armed with the long-barreled sharpe’s rifle, and who had been causing all the disturbance during the night by creeping through the thick undergrowth, in the dark and rain, trying to get away from the rebel lines they said, but continually coming in contact with skirmishers, and having to lay quiet, until they were heard by white and chadwell, who fired on them and then charged, when they surrendered.
the captain asked his men why they didn’t come in and report the cause of it, to which white replied, that "there were some more yankees out there in the woods, and as soon as they caught them, “chad” was going to take the whole squad in together."
the captain went back and told the company to “go to sleep, for white and chadwell were on picket,” and taking his gum-cloth he spread it down, by feeling, at what he considered a good place for a nap, having a little mound for a pillow; and notwithstanding the offensive smell, went to sleep until day-break, when, rousing up, 284he was rather non-plussed at the discovery that his pillow was a pile of amputated legs and arms, and in arms-reach of him lay the swollen, blackened corpse of a yankee sergeant, whose thigh had been shivered by a shell.
when white and chadwell came in, they reported total captures, in their two hours on duty, to be fourteen, and were going back to capture a squad quartered for the night in a log-cabin about a mile away, of which some of their prisoners had informed them, and taking with them two or three of the men at the reserve, they did go and capture several more.
on the 19th of may, gen. ewell, with part of his corps and rosser’s brigade, made a flank movement, about 4 o’clock in the evening of that rainy day, around the left wing of grant’s line, and had a very severe fight of about half an hour, in which the battalion only engaged as supports to chew’s artillery, and after ewell had withdrawn, having learned the important fact that grant was flanking, which was the object of his expedition, the brigade followed slowly and by dark was at its old camp near shady grove. the boys used to say that no matter what direction gen. rosser moved, during those fighting days in the wilderness, white’s battalion would surely bring up at shady grove, and it was true, too, for more than two weeks.
part of the time, during this warm campaign, 285“the people” suffered for rations, but were generally better fed than they anticipated, and as a general thing, men under constant and high excitement require less food than at other times; in fact i have frequently seen the soldiers, while listening to details of a battle, apparently forget to eat, although they had fasted for a day; but rations was the first thought which flashed through the minds of white’s battalion when the news reached them, about the 10th of may, that sheridan’s cavalry had cut the virginia central rail road, at beaverdam station, and destroyed fifty thousand pounds of bacon. they had no idea of being whipped in the field, for all thought that no army commanded by “uncle bobby” could he whipped by fighting, but if starvation came upon them they knew the war must end, and when gen. stuart hastily gathered what force he had convenient, to go after the raiders, he had the prayers of every praying man in the army of northern virginia, and the earnest wishes of all the rest, for his success.
about this time the enemy made a heavy movement on the left flank, and general hampton, with the few cavalry left him by stuart, had to do his best, and on the evening of the 18th ordered the battalion to support thompson’s battery which, as usual, got into a very hot place. the cobb legion was in front along the edge of the pines, dismounted, and the artillery on a hill something 286like a hundred yards in their rear, while fifty yards to the rear of the guns stood white’s people, and when the swarm of yankee infantry made their appearance the legion retired to their horses without firing a shot, but thompson opened with grape and canister and for a short time checked the advance, but by this time the musket balls were cutting the wheels of his gun-carriages, and rosser ordered him to retire, at the same time calling to colonel white to move everything but one squadron and to leave that with instructions to follow the battery and save it.
the colonel called out to captain myers, “hold your squadron there and when the yankees come on the hill, charge them,” and moved the rest of the command to the woods on the left. the enemy’s artillery, from the other side of po river, was now firing rapidly at thompson, and nearly every shell passed over or through the squadron, while the infantry fire was making the situation very hot, and when at length the battery did move it was found that the tongue of one of the caissons was broken, but mec souder, a loudoun county man and sergeant of the battery, cut a sapling and as rapidly as possible improvised a pole which enabled him to save the caisson.
the 1st squadron then moved off, but none too soon, for as they passed the woods about a hundred yards to the left, the yankees swarmed upon the hill, cutting general hampton off from his 287command, and capturing one man of the battalion. this was looked upon by the men as decidedly the narrowest escape they had ever made, for certainly if they had remained three minutes longer not a man could have escaped, as fully ten thousand infantry would have been within less than fifty yards and the squadron would have stood exactly in the centre of their line.
these were the men who captured general edward johnson, of ewell’s corps, with most of his division that same day, and they were then moving up to make their attack on the confederate works. the cavalry halted a short distance to the left and waited for the yankee troopers to appear, but they were all with sheridan near richmond.
the battalion had become so much reduced in numbers by the casualties of war that it was now formed in two squadrons, the first composed of companies a and c, under captains myers and dowdell and lieut. sam. grubb, and the second, of companies b, e and f, with capt. french and lieutenants strickler, chiswell and james for officers.
the second squadron was sent on picket to the left of the army, where it remained for some days, and on its return to the command about the 20th, the first was ordered out for a tour of duty of the same kind between todd’s tavern and the court house; but about 2 o’clock on the morning of the 21st received an order to join the battalion, then 288bringing up the rear of the army, which was moving by spottsylvania court-house towards the north anna river. the march was rather an exciting one, leading as it did over the broad battle-fields of the wilderness, where many hundreds of dead men still lay unburied, and the squadron was obliged to pass directly over them, when, as the hoofs of the horses would strike the corpses, the flesh would strip from the bones, leaving them glistening in the phosphorescent light that played around them, and the weird, ghostly influence of the scene affected the men, in the silence and gloom of that early morning, more than the presence of any number of live yankees could have done; but the night wore away—very slowly indeed, it seemed—and by an hour after sunrise the battalion united a few miles below the court-house, when it slowly marched along the richmond road, still acting as rear guard for the army. a small party of the men under lieutenant samuel grubb came directly by the court-house, barely escaping capture by the force of the enemy which occupied the village, as rear guard for grant’s army, and after passing that point they captured about a hundred stragglers, whom the lieutenant and his squad formed in line, and after breaking their guns and “going through them” for watches and greenbacks, paroled the whole party and sent them on their way rejoicing; with a net result of about a dozen brass watches that wouldn’t keep 289time; a hundred pocket-books containing in all, probably five hundred photographs, and two dollars in five cent notes, besides a few sutler tickets.
the battalion crossed the north anna about sun-set and having no horse-feed, rode until 11 o’clock hunting for a grass field, which they at last found near hanover junction. for several days the old fork church took the place of shady grove, to the “comanches,” and although they might be operating along the river—on the rail road; or skirmishing on the telegraph road—yet every day found them in bivouac during some part of it at the church which had stood for more than a century; its bricks having been brought from england during colonial days, and all its surroundings associated with the memory of the boyhood of henry clay; indeed the home of the great statesman’s mother was scarce half a mile from the church, in the slashes of hanover, where, as a boy, he cultivated corn and tobacco.
during all these days the rations were scanty, and hard in both senses of the word, but what the commissary department furnished was all that the troops could get, for the country was so impoverished, and the people so naturally shiftless, that they did not live better than the soldiers, and plentiful as were the negroes, none of them made enough to live on without stealing the corn and potatoes of the few white people who did try 290their best to make a sufficient quantity of provisions to subsist their families.
on the 28th of may the battalion marched with the division in the direction of mechanicsville, and on arriving near hawes’ shop, came in contact with a division of the enemy’s cavalry. here chew’s artillery took position on an open field about two hundred yards in front of a heavy pine forest, while the battalion, as usual, formed squadrons in the rear, to support the battery.
just as this arrangement was completed, gen. hampton passed along, and saluting col. white, exclaimed, "good morning, colonel, we’ve got the yankees where we want them now;" but in about fifteen minutes the battalion concluded that the boot was on the other foot, for the yankees certainly had them where they didn’t want to be. the storm of shot and shell that howled madly over and around them was terrific, and very soon two splendid men, lieut. strickler, co. e, and jack howard, co. a, were wounded, the lieutenant in the knee, and howard in the face with the big end of an exploded shell, which came bounding along the field. several horses were also struck, among them that ridden by capt. dowdell, and which had been the property of lieut. tom white, was killed. here the “new issue,” a brigade of new recruits from south carolina and georgia, which was commanded by the veteran 291gen. butler, of south carolina, was put, for the first time, under fire, and although their horses were stampeded and their queer bundles of clothes scattered through the pines in every direction, yet the men, fighting on foot with their long guns, stood bravely up to their work and whipped the enemy’s cavalry fairly, but when the 6th corps of yankee infantry came against them gen. hampton was compelled to withdraw them from the position they had held.
the battle had lasted two hours, and when the confederates withdrew before the heavy lines of infantry the enemy did not follow, clearly showing that they had no taste for hampton’s mode of handling cavalry.
up to this time the cavalry corps had not learned the style of their new commander, but now they discovered a vast difference between the old and the new, for while general stuart would attempt his work with whatever force he had at hand, and often seemed to try to accomplish a given result with the smallest possible number of men, gen. hampton always endeavored to carry every available man to his point of operation, and the larger his force the better he liked it.
the advantage of this style of generalship was soon apparent, for while under stuart stampedes were frequent, with hampton they were unknown, and the men of his corps soon had the same unwavering confidence in him that the “stonewall brigade” entertained for their general.
292this was the last battle for the month, and the battalion now went on picket until the 1st of june, engaged in frequent skirmishes with the enemy’s line of vedettes, but no casualties occurred except the occasional wounding of a horse, which always caused the loss of one man for duty, for no sooner was a horse disabled than his rider applied for and received a detail to go and supply himself with another, and besides the wounded men, the number on horse-detail, as it was called, so reduced the fighting men that the whole battalion now scarcely numbered more than co. a did at the beginning of the campaign, and officers were scarce in proportion, but on the 1st of june lieut. marlow, co. a, who had been absent since february, reported for duty.