BATTLE AND CAMPAIGN OF TREVILIAN STATION, JUNE 11TH AND 12TH, 1864
General Meade, notwithstanding his splendid service to the Federal
Army at Gettysburg, did not receive the promotion to which he and
many of his associates and friends felt that he was entitled. In
the fall of 1863 and in the early part of 1864 the failure of Meade
to meet public expectation induced President Lincoln to bring
General Grant from the West to direct the military movements around
Washington and Richmond. There had been so many disappointments
under the impetus of the cry, “On to Richmond,” that General Grant
determined, as he said, “to make Lee’s army my only objective point.
Wherever Lee goes we will go and we will hammer him continuously
until by mere attrition, if nothing else, there shall be nothing
left him but submission.” General Grant had many successes to his
credit, but he had never faced General Lee, and he had not yet fully
comprehended the character of the foe he was to encounter in the new
field to which he had come. He had before him a gigantic task. It
required several great battles to awake General Grant fully to the
burdens he must carry in the mission he had, with some degree of both
egotism and optimism, assumed.
These pronunciamentos of victory sounded well in orders and reports
to his superiors. The rulers and overseers in Washington were
gladdened by these expressions of confidence and assurance. True,
many here and there had thus spoken, but these had no such history as
General Grant, and could give no such reasons as he for the hope that
was within him.
During the first week of May, 1864, the roads and conditions were
such that an advance could be safely made by the Federal forces. On
the 2d of May General Lee ascended a high mountain in the midst of
his army and with a glass took in the situation. Around and about
him were scenes which his genius had made illustrious and which the
men of his army, by their valor, had rendered immortal. Longstreet
had come back from Tennessee and Georgia and the Army of Northern
Virginia had been recruited as far as possible, so as to prepare for
the onslaught which the springtime would surely bring, and which the
military conditions rendered speedy and certain.
Grant’s forces were well down in Virginia near Culpepper Court House,
forty-five miles from Washington. He had one hundred and fifty
thousand men under his command. This large army demanded vast trains
for supplies, and one-seventh of General Grant’s army was required to
take care of his wagon train. Grant had two hundred and seventy-five
cannon of the most improved kind, and he had Sheridan, then in the
zenith of his fame, as his cavalry leader. There were thirteen
thousand cavalrymen to look out for the advance and take care of the
flanks of this great array. It is calculated that if Grant’s supply
train had marched in single file, it would have covered a distance
of one hundred miles; and one of General Grant’s well-informed
subordinates said to him, “You have the best clothed and the best fed
army that ever marched on any field.”
About the first of May General Lee had sixty-two thousand men ready
for battle. He had two hundred and twenty-five guns; five thousand
artillerymen and eight thousand five hundred cavalrymen under the
renowned “Jeb” Stuart. Each of the great leaders realized, although
they gave no outward expression of their conclusion, that the month
of May would witness a mighty death grapple, the fiercest and most
destructive that the war had seen. Neither the men in gray nor the
men in blue would possibly have fought so vigorously had they known
what the days from May 4th to June 4th had in store for the legions
now ready to face and destroy each other. Day by day the calls of an
astounding mortality would be met. Day by day each would accept the
demands that duty made, with a fortitude that was worthy of American
soldiers, but only General Lee fully realized what these days would
bring forth. Not until twenty days later did General Grant grasp the
true extent of what this advance meant to the soldiers he had been
called to lead.
It was clear from General Grant’s telegrams that he had not expected
the sort of campaign that General Lee put up against him in this
march to Richmond. On the 4th of May, after he had crossed the
Rapidan, he wired to his superiors at Washington that “forty-eight
hours would demonstrate whether Lee intends to give battle before
receding to Richmond.” General Lee was in no hurry to throw down the
gage. He could afford to take his own time. He had met many Federal
generals before and he had out-generaled them all. His army was at
Orange Court House. Later, to protect his flank, it turned eastward
to Spottsylvania County. Gradually Lee was nestling his army between
Fredericksburg and the Pamunky River. Richmond was almost due south
of Washington, but the Potomac drove Grant westward and in sight of
Fredericksburg, where in days gone by Burnside had been crushed.
Grant had resolved to go to Richmond, but between him and Richmond
was General Lee with his matchless fighters, and hitherto these had
proved an unsurmountable barrier to all who undertook to travel this
road.
By the morning of the 5th the lines had been formed on the Wilderness
Road and it became apparent that every step that General Grant would
take on his southern advance was to be skillfully and savagely
contested.
On the 5th of May, when the first day of the battle was passed,
General Lee had suffered no reverse, and he telegraphed to Richmond:
“By the blessing of God we maintained our position against every
effort, until night, when the contest closed.” By five o’clock on
the morning of the 6th the armies were engaged again. In the midst
of a crisis at the front, long expected reinforcements came on the
field; General Lee advanced to meet them. The turning point was at
hand. The men of Texas were the first to reach the scene of action.
Hitherto General Lee had never lost his equipoise, and, riding in
the midst of the Texans, did what he rarely ever did before—gave an
immediate command on the battlefield. He exclaimed to the Texans:
“Charge! Charge! Charge, boys! Charge!” He was rushing amongst
them to the front where the storm of lead and iron was heavy and
momentarily increasing. When these devoted soldiers saw their great
commander exposed to the fire, with one accord they cried out: “Go
back, General Lee! Go back! Go back!” The brave artillerymen under
Poague shouted, “Come back, General Lee! Come back! Come back!”
Oblivious of these tender expressions of their solicitude, lifting
himself high up in his stirrups, on “Traveler,” and waving his hat
he headed the charge. Up to this moment there had been no firing
from the Confederate soldiers. From one end of the line to the
other there arose over the battlefield the cry, “Lee to the rear!
Lee to the rear!” The roar of artillery and the sharper crackling
of musketry could not drown this outburst of solicitude along the
Confederate ranks. No danger could quell this agony of his followers
or still their fear for his safety. His life was to them above all
other considerations, and their concern for him even in the midst
of greatest danger was an absorbing passion and consuming desire. A
brawny Texas sergeant sprang from the ranks and seized the bridle of
“Traveler” and turned him about. The Confederate column refused to
move until General Lee retired from the scene of danger. The love and
devotion of his followers forced him to go. No commander could, or
dare, resist such an appeal.
On the morning of the 10th of May General Grant felt that Washington
would like to know what had happened down in the Virginia hills, and
so out of the smoke and gloom of the firing line and the burning
summer sun he said: “We were engaged with the enemy all day both on
the 5th and 6th.... Had there been daylight, the enemy could have
injured us very much in the confusion that prevailed.” He confessed
that his loss in this battle had been twelve thousand. He quieted the
alarms at Washington by saying that the mortality of the Confederates
no doubt exceeded his, but he admitted, that was only a guess based
on the fact that they had attacked and were repulsed. He added: “At
present we can claim no victory over the enemy, neither have they
gained a single advantage.” General Grant had now discovered that
General Lee would give him battle “this side of Richmond,” and it had
cost him seventeen thousand men to reach this conclusion.
By the 8th of May General Grant began to take General Lee more
seriously, for he wired: “It is not demonstrated what the enemy
will do, but the best of feeling prevails in this army and I feel
at present no apprehension for the result.” He now resolved to go
east of the route he had chosen and so he despatched the following
to his superiors: “My exact route to the James River I have not yet
definitely marked out.” It was evident that General Lee had changed
General Grant’s plans.
General Grant now set his cavalry to raid General Lee’s trains.
Sheridan swung to the right and struck the highway to Richmond. The
contending forces had now reached Spottsylvania Court House. It had
been a slow march, and it was a death march. By the 10th General
Grant became still more uncertain, and he wired: “The enemy hold out
front in very strong force and evince a very strong determination
to interpose between us and Richmond.... I shall take no backward
steps but may be compelled to send back for further supplies. We can
maintain ourselves and in the end beat Lee’s army, I believe.”
On the 11th General Grant had still further reason to revise his
opinions. He wired General Halleck: “We have now ended the 6th day of
very heavy fighting. The result to this time is in our favor, but our
losses have been heavy as well as those of the enemy. We have lost to
this time eleven ... general officers killed, wounded and missing,
and probably twenty thousand men. I propose to fight it out on this
line if it takes all summer.”
Not sufficiently protected, twenty-eight hundred of General Lee’s men
had been captured. Artillery had not been ordered to their support
promptly enough, and twenty cannon were the prize of Hancock’s
valiant followers. General Lee heard the sounds of a fierce conflict
and rode to the scene of danger and advanced into a line of heavy
fire. He found himself in the midst of General John B. Gordon’s
men. General Gordon, with that voice that thrilled men in war and
peace, wherever it was heard, shouted: “General Lee to the rear!”
and flaming with courage and enthusiasm he rode to the Confederate
chieftain and exclaimed, “General Lee, these men are Georgians and
Virginians; they have never failed you. They will not fail you now.”
A soldier, moved by the spirit of the moment, rushed from the ranks
and seizing “Traveler” by the bridle turned his head to the rear and
led him away, and up and down the line came a mighty cry, “Lee to
the rear!” With a wild rush Gordon drove the enemy from his front,
but not a step did the soldiers advance until General Lee had obeyed
their peremptory order to find a place of safety.
General Lee, remaining close to the position where Gordon had left
him, attempted to lead the Mississippians under Harris. These again
took up the great heart cry of the Confederate hosts, and shouted,
“Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!” The conflict became appalling.
Men from opposite sides of breastworks climbed to their tops and
fired into the face of their opponents. They grappled with each
other and drew each other across the breastworks. The trenches were
filled with blood, and nature sent a cold and dreary rain to chill
the life currents of the wounded men that lay on the field. It was
said by those who listened to the sound of musketry and the crash of
artillery at Spottsylvania and elsewhere, that it was the steadiest
and most continuous and deafening that the war witnessed.
By the 13th twenty-eight hundred of Lee’s men had been captured under
General Bushrod Johnson, but he had only lost eighteen per cent
of his army. Sixteen thousand of General Grant’s had been killed
and wounded. To this loss must be added the twenty thousand who
had already fallen bravely before the men of the Army of Northern
Virginia.
By the 12th General Grant had telegraphed: “The 8th day of battle
closed. The enemy obstinate. They seem to have found the last
ditch.” On the morning of the 13th General Grant’s subordinate
again telegraphed: “The proportion of severely wounded is greater
than either of the previous day’s fighting.” He further said in
the afternoon: “The impression that Lee had started on his retreat
which prevailed at the date of my despatch this morning is not
confirmed.... Of course, we cannot determine without a battle whether
the whole army is still here, and nothing has been done today to
provoke one. It has been necessary to rest the men, and accordingly
we have everywhere stood upon the defensive.”
It was on the evening of May 11th that along the wires came to
General Lee the startling and shocking intelligence that General
J. E. B. Stuart had fallen. For seven days Lee declined to
give any official announcement of this tragedy. He carried the
depressing secret in his bosom. A year before, Stonewall Jackson,
at Chancellorsville, had been stricken down in the midst of another
gigantic conflict. General Lee was unwilling to let his fighters know
that death had called the illustrious cavalry chieftain at the moment
when they most needed the inspiration of every Confederate leader.
Grant sat down to wait five days and in the meantime he added twenty
thousand fresh troops to his legions.
The hammering process had not proved such a wonderful success after
all, and so Grant had ordered Sigel down the Shenandoah Valley
to break Lee’s communication. In the meantime General John C.
Breckinridge came up from Southwestern Virginia and brought with him
some infantry and some cavalry, and on the 15th of May, while General
Grant was waiting, Breckinridge had crushed Sigel and captured six
of his guns as well as one-sixth of his men. On the 17th of May,
Halleck wired General Grant: “Sigel is in full retreat on Strasburg.
He will do nothing but run—never did anything else”; and there came
also to General Grant on this eventful day the news that Beauregard
over at Petersburg had driven General Butler back and bottled him up
on the James River.
On the 20th of May, Grant moved still further eastward at
Spottsylvania Court House. Since crossing the Rapidan on May 4th,
sixteen days before, he had suffered a loss of thirty-seven thousand
men. This was thirty per cent of all the fighting men that he had led
out from Culpepper Court House.
Grant was still moving eastward and Dana telegraphed: “Now for the
first time Lee prevented his southward march.” He seemed to have
forgotten what had been happening since the 4th of May.
Sigel disposed of, Breckinridge came to join in the conflict at Cold
Harbor. By the 26th of May General Grant had withdrawn from Lee’s
front, and pressing eastward and southwardly, attempted to find
another road to Richmond. He telegraphed to Washington: “I may be
mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee’s army is already
insured,” but yet he directed that his supplies be brought up the
Pamunky River to the White House. He was looking for a base and he
was going to find the path that McClellan followed when he met defeat
from General Lee two years before.
By May 30th General Grant had again changed his views about General
Lee and so he despatched to General Halleck: “I wish you would bring
all the pontoon bridging you can to City Point to have it ready in
case it is wanted.” He found out that Lee might fight outside of
Richmond—and anywhere else in its defense.
The two armies were swinging around now to Cold Harbor. This place
was already known in history. The armies now facing each other had
met there before, in June, 1862. The results then to the Federals
were not encouraging. This time they were to prove far more
disastrous and exceedingly horrible.
On the morning of June 3d, 1864, at half past four o’clock, General
Grant opened a great battle—Cold Harbor—the greatest battle of
this campaign and the only battle he afterwards said that he ever
regretted having fought. Persisting in his policy of forcing his way
south to Richmond, he was unwilling to confess failure. Confident of
the power of the “hammering process,” committed by his boast to fight
it out on this line if it took all summer, he was too proud to admit
that he was mistaken. He hoped and believed that fate, hitherto so
propitious, would now come to his rescue and relief in the extremity
of the situation into which war’s surprises had brought him. Between
four and nine o’clock in the morning, assault after assault was made
and the whole front of Grant’s line was so decimated that his men
drew back from the scenes of conflict. At nine o’clock it became
so dreadful that even as brave men as Hancock refused to transmit
General Grant’s peremptory orders to his subordinates to renew the
attack. Each time it was transmitted, each time the men on the line
refused to obey the order, and officers who had never before quailed,
and who were strangers to fear, stood still and allowed their men
to stand still in the face of peremptory orders to advance. Ten
thousand men on the 1st and 3d of June were wounded and killed, and
then General Grant moved away from Lee’s front. It was impregnable,
and General Grant realized that the Army of Northern Virginia,
although only half as numerous as his own, would not be driven away
from their places. It cost thousands of dead and wounded, but it was
demonstrated to be a verity, and General Grant, with all his hitherto
indomitable will and with his tremendous pride of opinion, yielded
to the inevitable—that General Lee’s genius and the courage of his
followers had forced into his mind and set up in his path.
Seventeen thousand killed, wounded or sent away by reason of
sickness, were the tidings that came from this ensanguined field to
Washington, where thirty days before every heart was so full of hope.
General Grant had permitted his dead and wounded between the lines
to lie uncared for until the 5th of June, and then humanity with
fearful protest forced him at least officially to admit that he was
vanquished. He at last sought the right to succor the wounded and
bury the dead.
With the Army of Northern Virginia behind the breastworks, with their
courage and dogged determination to defend their capital, there
was no force of men and no legion however brave or intrepid that
could move these men in gray. The men under the Stars and Bars had
sufficient ammunition to keep their guns in use, and so long as it
was possible to fire these guns, no earthly foeman could break their
lines. True, for an instant, at one angle the line had been forced,
but quickly it was retaken and the Confederate front restored.
Grant had lost approximately seventy thousand men, killed or wounded.
General Lee had suffered a loss of twenty thousand, making a total
on both sides of ninety thousand, and from Culpepper to Cold Harbor,
covering a period of thirty days, the world had never seen such a
trail of blood. The life currents of valiant soldiers flowed almost
in a stream. These armies had traveled fifty miles. They had been
battling and killing all the way. This road was two hundred and
sixty-four thousand feet in length. Every three feet had witnessed
the sacrifice of a life or the infliction of a wound. Men looked
aghast at this loss of life and limb.
On the 11th of May, General Stuart had fallen at Yellow Tavern. He
died on the 12th. Universal sorrow filled every heart. A year before
Stonewall Jackson had died, and now came the death of Stuart, as a
sort of final stroke to the Confederate hopes. When Stuart died, on
May 12th, General Wade Hampton, as senior major general of cavalry
in the Army of Northern Virginia, took his place. Sheridan had gone
down to the west of Richmond and made the attack which resulted in
Stuart’s death, and after a repulse rode back to the shelter of
General Grant’s infantry.
Sheridan had reached the gates of Richmond, but there his course was
stayed and his raid ended and he turned about and came to the west
of Grant’s army and resumed his place with it on the 25th of May. He
had not suffered a very great loss, six hundred and twenty-five men,
but the Confederates had lost Stuart, and now Hampton was to come
to the front. He was forty-six years of age; he had passed through
three years of vigorous warfare and a wide experience. Under him
now were some of the best cavalry leaders the country had known.
He had M. C. Butler, with his South Carolinians; he had P. M. B.
Young, with his Georgians; he had Rosser, with his Virginians; he
had Wickham and Lomax, with their Virginians, under Fitzhugh Lee. He
had James B. Gordon, with the North Carolinians, and Chambliss, with
his Virginians, under W. H. F. Lee, son of Robert E. Lee. Dismounts,
wounds and casualties had reduced his forces to the point where they
could only do the necessary cavalry work for General Lee’s army.
The Federal cavalry, at this time, was commanded by General Sheridan.
He had three divisions under Torbert, Gregg and Wilson, and these
had between them fifteen thousand eight hundred and twenty-five
serviceable horses and men. For every horseman of Hampton, Sheridan
had two. A little while before there had come into use among the
Federals the Spencer & Hall magazine rifles. Each man not only had
one of these magazine rifles, but he had a revolver and a sabre.
The horses were always fed and they could be changed whenever the
exigencies of war demanded. After the experiences at Fleetwood
Hill, General Hampton realized that the methods of fighting must
be altered. He had read of what Morgan and Forrest and Wheeler had
done with dismounted men. He did not yield his mounted drill, but he
expanded and developed his dismounted drill.
General Grant had failed to break General Lee’s lines. He must
now resort to flank movements. General Hampton never for a moment
hesitated at the tremendous responsibilities which now rested upon
the cavalry. He was conscious of his power and the efficiency of
his followers, and was ready to do the best he could. He was the
successor of one of the most distinguished, brave and dashing cavalry
leaders of the war. It required genius and courage to rise to the
situation, but General Hampton, with calmness and intrepidity, was
willing to meet every call and face every emergency.
Over at Hawes’ Shop, on the 28th of May, Sheridan was trying to find
out the position of the Confederate infantry, and Hampton was trying
to find out the position of the Federal infantry. They fought seven
hours. Some of Hampton’s men had never heard the battle sound before.
They had been sandwiched in with the veterans, and they made good
soldiers even in their first conflict.
Custer and other Federal officers said that the fight at Hawes’ Shop
was the severest cavalry fighting in the war. Colonel Alger of the
5th Michigan says it was a hand-to-hand battle. The South Carolinians
bore the brunt of it, and they won new laurels. When the result of
the fighting at Hawes’ Shop was made known none doubted that Stuart’s
mantle had fallen upon a worthy successor. It was immediately
preceding the death of General Stuart that General Sheridan said
either to Grant or some of his commanders that he “could whip hell
out of Stuart”; to which General Grant laconically replied, “Why
in hell didn’t he go and do it?” He went, but he came back without
making good his boast, and he was now to take a turn with General
Hampton.
Next came Atlee Station, with its close, sharp contest and with its
victory.
After the Battle of Cold Harbor, on the 4th day of June, Grant began
to fortify and swing around to the east and north. Later he crossed
the James River and sat down for the siege of Petersburg. He had
not at first recognized General Lee’s true greatness. Here he was
to realize the stern, unyielding courage of the Army of Northern
Virginia. He had found it would do no good to “fight it out on that
line, if it took all summer,” and to save his army from annihilation
he must change his plan of campaign. At the Battle of Cold Harbor,
the ratio of loss had been for fifteen Federals, one Confederate.
Nothing had happened like this before. No man could deny the valor
and persistency of the Federal soldiers under Grant. They did not
flinch when the test came. They bared their breast to the awful
storm, and it swept more than seventy thousand either into the grave
or the hospital. We know now all that passed. The wonderful book
published by the Federal government, entitled “War of the Rebellion,
Official Record,” tells the whole story, and the reader can see by
the daily records and despatches of the actors on both sides, in
these days of tremendous conflict, what these two armies did in the
gigantic struggle for the possession of the Confederate capital.
On the morning of June 8th, General Hampton with his forces was out
near Atlee Station, eight miles north of Richmond. In the early hours
of that morning Sheridan marched away with a cavalry force of nine
thousand men. He had been ordered by Grant to march northwest, to
capture and destroy Gordonsville and Charlottesville, and then to
move down the valley and help Hunter, who was then on his way to
Lynchburg.
All the fury and storm of war now seemed to be turned loose on
General Lee’s army. Hunter had penetrated the valley and was setting
his face toward Lynchburg. The torch, with the horrors of hell behind
it, was reducing the beautiful and happy homes of Virginia to heaps
of ruins; piles of ashes and chimneys standing stark and lone were
the memorial to the savagery of the invasion of this once hospitable
and cultured country. Now Sheridan, later the “Scourge of God” in the
Shenandoah Valley, was to add new atrocities at Charlottesville to
war’s devastation and brutality.
The signal stations told the story of General Sheridan’s departure.
General Hampton divined where he was going. He conferred with General
Lee, and asked to follow Sheridan’s path and attempt the defense
of the valley. As greatly as General Lee needed men, he could not
allow Sheridan to march unmolested and destroy lines which were so
essential to the maintenance of the Confederate position in and
around Richmond.
Rations were light in these days. Quickly, three days’ food was
cooked and with a few ears of corn tied round with strings and
fastened to the saddles became the commissary equipment of Hampton’s
forces, which were to engage in one of the important cavalry
campaigns of the war. The cavalry under Hampton and Sheridan was to
be removed fifty miles from the infantry supports and the cavalry
alone was to fight out the issues of this campaign. Like mighty
wrestlers repairing to some desert to try out their skill alone,
these two cavalry forces marched away where none could see them
in their struggle, and where none could come to the rescue of the
vanquished.
Hampton could not take more than forty-seven hundred men. These were
all that Lee could spare. He had twelve pieces of artillery.
Sheridan had two divisions. They numbered nine thousand men. They
carried twenty-four pieces of artillery, and were the best the army
of the Potomac could send. Sheridan had the 1st, 2d and 5th United
States Regulars and there were no better trained cavalry than these.
He had Custer’s brigade, who had imbibed the dash and courage of
their leader, and he had New York, New Jersey and Maine regiments
that had won renown not only at Fleetwood Hill, but on many other
fields. These horsemen had witnessed the terrors of the march from
Culpepper to Cold Harbor. Its wrecks and its losses stood out before
their minds in sharpest lines. The horsemen had fared well, and the
infantry had borne the burden of the thirty-seven days’ decimation,
and with the instincts of brave men they were rather glad to be
sent to take a hand in any movement which should either avenge or
compensate for the defense of that terrifying campaign.
[Illustration: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON]
Few people knew of Sheridan’s going. He had marched away first
towards Washington, but he could not march out of sight of the skill
or the watchful eyes of General Hampton’s scouts. Hope beat high in
the breast of Sheridan. He had felt chagrined that he had failed in
his attack on Richmond a few days before and now he hoped to destroy
Gordonsville and Charlottesville and march down the valley to
Lynchburg and take Richmond from the rear, come in behind Petersburg,
and bring wreck and ruin to General Lee. It was a great plan of
campaign, laid out along broad lines. He had hoped to keep away from
his wily antagonist, but Hampton divined whither he was going, and it
turned out when Sheridan had reached the first objective point of his
campaign, he was to face a tired but vigorous and dauntless pursuer,
and one who never quailed or doubted even when nature was almost
pitilessly resistant.
Sheridan marched in three days sixty-five miles. It was hot, dusty
and water was scarce. He marched leisurely, because he felt that
his antagonist knew naught of his plans, and he was confident that
Hampton could not reach him where he was going. He was sure that he
had gotten away unobserved, and that he would have nothing to do but
burn, waste and destroy from Gordonsville to Lynchburg. He could see
in his mind’s eye the flames licking up the buildings that stood by
the path he was to march. A feeling of profound satisfaction filled
his heart, and on the terribleness of his work he felt sure he could
found a new reputation for victory and success.
On the night of the 10th Sheridan and his soldiers slept calmly in
the summer air. They did not know where Hampton was, but they felt
sure he was not where they were, and no dreams of danger or battle
disturbed the tranquility and quiet of their rest.
On the morning after Sheridan started north and then turned west,
Hampton set his forces in motion. He was sure that he knew where
Sheridan was going. He was staking his all on the correctness of
his instincts. He was confident he could march more rapidly than
Sheridan; he knew the road and he had the short line; but yet he must
march under tremendous difficulties. The temperature was torrid, the
dust was so thick that it almost could be cut with a knife. After
breathing it a few hours, the nostrils and eyes of the men became
inflamed, and the moisture of the body combining with the dust made
an oozy, slimy substance that half blinded their vision. Water was
scarce and food was scarce, but courage was still abundant.
By the night of June 10th Hampton had traveled something like fifty
miles. Sheridan had gone sixty-five miles, and as darkness came
on, Hampton’s forces reached Green Spring Valley, a few miles away
from Trevilian Station, an insignificant railway stop, from which
the battle on the morrow was to take its name. The two Confederate
divisions were a few miles apart. This hard marching, the cooked
rations, the corn upon the saddles, told the intelligent men that
constituted Hampton’s forces that they were after somebody and it did
not take them long to figure out that this somebody was Sheridan.
With their parched throats and swollen eyes, and suffering with
inflamed nostrils, they laid down to sleep, not worrying about the
morrow. Careless as to what it would bring for them, they were ready
to answer every call of duty, wherever that should lead them in the
day to come. As the streaks of light began to come over the mountain
sides from the east, every man in the Confederate line was up and at
his post, ready for action. The last of the corn that was brought on
their weary backs from Atlee Station was fed to the hungry brutes,
and the last of the soggy bread, which had been cooked for the men
before they had set out on this march, was eaten. General Hampton
knew that now he must be close to the Federal lines. The night
before his scouts had brought him back information that Sheridan was
near by. Some of these had looked into his camps, and the Federals,
unconscious of the presence of Hampton’s legions, had been sounding
their bugles and were quietly and leisurely making their morning’s
meal. They felt there was no need for haste. As there was no hostile
force near, they believed they might in safety enjoy a brief repose,
which they had fully earned by hardest service.
Hampton’s scouts knew the topography. They had described Sheridan’s
location. He formed his plans accordingly, and they were plans which
involved savage work. General Forrest’s quaint saying, “Get the bulge
on them,” had traveled to the east and fallen on Hampton’s ears. With
an inferior force he well understood that strategy and skill would
stand him well in hand, and that he must take fullest advantage of
all that chance might send his way. It was worth some hundreds of men
to get the drop on Sheridan. The first lick is oftentimes of great
value, and General Hampton was resolved if it was possible to strike
an unexpected blow. He hoped in this way to equalize the disparity
of numbers. He began his work early and he set about the business
of the day furiously. His orders were to assail the enemy wherever
and whenever found and not for a single moment to stay the tide of
battle.
The country had not been denuded of its wood. This would help to hide
from the enemy the full strength and position of the Confederates,
and at the same time it would make more effective the slower,
steadier and more accurate firing of the men in gray. The Federals
had sarcastically referred to General Hampton as a “woods fighter”;
in other words, he was afraid to come out in the open, but when he
had forty-seven hundred to nine thousand, he had a right to take
advantage of all that the surrounding conditions would give him in
the conflict.
Hampton had undertaken to intercept Sheridan’s march. He had
out-marched him. He had done in two days that which had taken
Sheridan three, and his men were as fresh and bright as those of
Sheridan. The journey had told on man and beast, but they had both
become used to the severest toil, and were willing and ready for any
fray that would pass that way.
Some picket firing was heard, but the Federals, not yet realizing
that Hampton was in their front and on their flank, supposed that the
desultory shots were from the guns of raw militia who had pressed
forward with more vigor than discretion.
Sheridan and his most dashing lieutenant, General Custer, no sooner
heard heavy firing than they comprehended the real situation. They
understood that the Confederates had followed them in heavy force,
that the clash would be serious, and that hard fighting was at hand,
and that if they were to continue their march down the valley, they
must discomfit the men who were now assailing their lines and drive
them out of their path. The Federals began to fight back with
spirit. It did not take them long to get ready for the grave task
that was forced upon them. While the Confederates were charging, the
men in blue were charging, too, and by good luck and by boldness
Custer passed between Fitzhugh Lee and Hampton’s two divisions and
was at the Confederate rear before anybody caught on to this serious
condition. When General Hampton, guided by the sound of firing,
rushed to the spot, he found that Custer was vigorously assailing
his rear. Custer had taken many of his caissons and wagons and led
horses, and he felt that victory was already within his grasp. In
this emergency, Rosser, who could always be depended upon for a
fierce, impetuous charge, was ordered to attack Custer. In a few
moments the crash of charging horses, the roll of revolver firing,
and the cuts of sabres demonstrated to Custer’s men that the people
they were fighting were not militia, but foemen worthy of their
steel. Nearly all that Custer had captured was retaken, and an entire
regiment made prisoners. Rosser fell wounded. The enemy, finding the
opportunity, pressed hard upon Butler’s and Young’s brigades. The
result of the battle hung in the balance. A mistake on either side
would be fatal. Hampton’s presence was always an inspiration, and he
rode from place to place on every part of the field. Outnumbered,
Hampton’s division under Lee was sorely pressed, and General Fitzhugh
Lee’s division was cut off and became so thoroughly separated that it
could be of no help or support for twenty-four hours.
Sheridan’s forces were now turned with severe impact upon Hampton’s
division, and gradually it was forced back toward Gordonsville,
but still protected that place and Charlottesville. Hampton quickly
took advantage of a railroad embankment, dismounted his men and put
them behind it, and against this, Sheridan, all during the afternoon
of the 10th, in vain hurled his forces. When the sun rose on the
morning of the 11th, Hampton, his men, his artillery and his horses
were still in position. Sheridan, strangely enough, waited until
three o’clock in the afternoon. By this he lost his chance to win.
Had he rushed the Confederate line with a real impetuous assault
he would have broken it. He waited without a good reason. Fitzhugh
Lee, with two-fifths of Hampton’s men, was marching to avoid Federal
interruption, and when he came, Hampton’s heart was gladdened and
his hopes lifted high. Fitzhugh Lee coming once more united the
Confederates, and now all of Hampton’s men faced all of Sheridan’s
men with Hampton protected by the railroad embankment. When this
barrier, as the battle front was lengthened, failed, fence rails
were pressed into service and such earth as the men could throw up
with their hands and plates and cups reinforced the rails. So far
little had been done or accomplished, and Sheridan moved up his men
close to the Confederate lines. They had plenty of ammunition, and
the roar from the constant discharge of the magazine rifles made a
terrific din. Again and again Sheridan’s men with supreme courage
assailed the Confederate breastworks, but each time they left their
dead and wounded and fell back from the scenes of slaughter. Chew
and Hart, with their artillery, poured deadliest discharges into the
Federal columns. At one time General M. C. Butler’s men exhausted
their ammunition. It looked as if all was lost. When despair seemed
to fill every heart in this brave command, an ammunition wagon, with
the horses lashed to a gallop, came dashing by, and the occupants of
the wagon flung out from its sides loose handfuls of cartridges, and
these the men joyously seized and returned to the fray. Seven times
Sheridan’s men advanced to the charge, and seven times they recoiled
from the tremendous fire that greeted them from the Confederate
lines. At the moment of the last assault a Confederate shell exploded
a Federal caisson. Somebody realized that this was the psychological
moment, and from over the breastworks the Confederates, moved by
instinct and valor, charged with the speed of racers upon the Federal
line. The rebel yell was heard from end to end, and the Federal
forces, disheartened by their many failures, were swept away by the
unexpected and impetuous advance of Hampton’s soldiers. The turning
point had come. The Confederates seized their opportunity and the
battle was won.
From three o’clock in the afternoon until ten o’clock at night
the contest had raged, and the record showed that it was a fierce
contest. Both sides had dismounted. On the ground they were assailing
each other with greatest energy and persistence. The Confederates
had the best of position, but the Federals had the most of men. All
through the afternoon and in the darkness of night neither side was
willing to give up the struggle. The stars came out with feeble
light to relieve the gloom and shadows that overspread the wreck
and suffering of the battlefield. Naught could stay the surging
tide of war, and in the darkness, as in the light, these soldiers
continued to wage the contest. There was no time to bear away the
dead or relieve the wounded. Orders had been given by General Hampton
to Fitzhugh Lee for rapid and fierce pursuit, and to intervene
between Sheridan and Carpenter’s Ford on the North Anna River, at
which he had crossed the day before; but the orders failed or were
not executed and Sheridan marched away, leaving the unfortunate
wounded behind, and returned by the same road over which he had
come. He left in the hands of the men of the South six hundred and
ninety-five prisoners and one hundred and twenty-five wounded. Again
was demonstrated the power of the single-firing guns. The Federals
claim to have carried away more than five hundred wounded, but they
abandoned their dead and a hundred and twenty-five wounded were left
with Hampton.
Little time was allowed for expressions of humanity. The
Confederates, with the possession of the battlefield, assumed thereby
responsibility for the care of those whose misfortunes left them
suffering and helpless in the fields and woods that had witnessed
the harvest of death on the two days of the struggle. When the storm
of battle had passed, Federal and Confederate wounded were placed in
improvised hospitals constructed of flat cars, thence conveyed to
some convenient hospital further south. The few people that were left
in this war-stricken country brought such food as they could spare
to feed Hampton and his men; but these, rising to the highest calls
of humanity, hungry and thirsty themselves, willingly made an equal
division of what had been brought with their wounded and captured
foes. This was a splendid demonstration of the noble and generous
instincts that ever dwell in the hearts of brave men and which
quicken and expand under the influence of opportunity. The bitterness
of a fratricidal war could not stay the exercise of benignity and
mercy.
General Sheridan endeavored to mitigate the unfortunate results of
this expedition upon which he had started with high and boastful
hopes. He had promised so much and accomplished so little that it
required no small genius and much of rhetorical skill to satisfy
those who had sent him on so important a mission. He had his own
choice of troopers. Those he took with him had shown that in any
contest they were ready to give a good account of themselves.
Equipped, armed and provided with all that money could bring, and
brought to a high degree of discipline, and already fully proved
as able to cope with their foes, General Sheridan had either to
exaggerate the number of men under Hampton, magnify the difficulties
he encountered or admit a complete defeat. He chose the former. He
claimed that he had attacked the Confederates in fortifications. He
reported that Hampton had been reinforced by infantry on the second
day of the fight, when in fact there was no infantry closer than
General Lee’s camps, eight miles from Richmond. The barren results of
this expedition temporarily shook General Grant’s faith in General
Sheridan’s capacity and fighting qualities, and this was only
restored, when later, in the Valley and around Petersburg, General
Sheridan repaired his shattered reputation, and with the experiences
of another four months demonstrated that he was both a brilliant and
aggressive cavalry leader.
He had hoped to do great damage to the railroad at Gordonsville
and south to Staunton, and yet he only disturbed two hundred feet.
General Torbert reported that the Confederates had a large brigade
of mounted infantry armed with rifle muskets. A Federal prisoner
had written in his diary on the last day of the fight—“Sunday, June
12th, ... fought on same ground and got whipped like the devil....”
Anyhow, whatever may have been the results as figured in General
Sheridan’s imagination, he made a night ride, crossed the North Anna
River, and marched back to Cold Harbor, from whence he had come. For
eight days Hampton was on one side of the river and Sheridan on the
other. If Sheridan wanted to fight he had pontoon bridges and he had
only to lay them and cross over. For at least a portion of the time
the two cavalry commands were within sight of each other and now and
then they exchanged shots. After fifteen days General Sheridan had
gotten back to where he left Grant’s army, from whence he started
out with such flattering hopes and alluring expectations. He now
found that Grant had determined to abandon his summer line, cross the
Chickahominy, ferry over the James River, and take up a position on
its south bank, from whence the long siege of Petersburg would begin,
and proceed by inches until it would culminate in the overthrow of
the Confederacy.
General Hampton had a second chance at General Gregg at Nance’s
Shop on the 24th of June, eleven days after the cessation of
hostilities at Trevilian. He came close to making a complete rout
of General Gregg’s forces. Attacking in the afternoon he harried
his lines,—pursued him until eleven o’clock at night, and a short
distance from Charles City Court House captured one hundred and
fifty-seven prisoners. So sorely was General Gregg’s division handled
in this affair that it required some time to recruit and mend up.
General Sheridan, in making his report, was bound by his backward
march to express his regret at his inability to carry out his
instructions. It was with much humiliation that he admitted failure.
In the campaign Sheridan lost, according to Federal reports, more
than fifteen hundred killed, wounded and taken prisoner, while
General Hampton’s forces lost less than eight hundred. This Trevilian
expedition was another test out of the spirit and power of Federal
and Confederate cavalry of the armies in Northern Virginia. It
demonstrated anew that the Confederate cavalry under Hampton was
just as enterprising, as valiant, as enthusiastic and as brave and
dauntless as when it fought under Stuart. Down to the very end the
horsemen of the Army of Northern Virginia maintained their proud
spirit and their indomitable will, and when the last call was made,
when the lines at Petersburg had been broken, and when General Lee,
in the vain hope of effecting a union with Johnston in Georgia, had
turned his face west and reached Appomattox, there to be met with sad
and appalling disaster, the cavalry was still ready and willing to
fight and give valiant response to the last call that their country
could make upon their fealty and their courage. Many of them marched
into North Carolina and Georgia to make one more stand under the
Stars and Bars, and once more offer their lives to win life for the
Confederate Nation.