In about ten days General Gregg's division marched towards Aldie, the
object being to discover the movements of Lee's army; the idea being
that our cavalry should find their cavalry, attack and drive them back
on their infantry, thus obtaining the knowledge the commander of the
army required. On this march to Aldie General Pleasanton, the corps
commander, was represented at General Gregg's headquarters by one of his
staff officers, Captain George A. Custer, afterwards General. When
Custer appeared he at once attracted the attention of the entire
command. On that day he was dressed like an ordinary enlisted man, his
trousers tucked in a pair of short-legged government boots, his horse
equipments being those of an ordinary wagonmaster. He rode with a little
rawhide riding whip stuck in his bootleg, and had long yellow curls down
to his shoulders, his face ruddy and good-natured.
While on this march we came to a stream beside the road, in which a full
battalion could water their horses at once. As the headquarters staff
and the troops following us had gone into line to permit their horses to
drink, Custer, for some reason, concluded to go in on the other side of
the stream, riding in alone to allow his horse to drink. He did not know
how deep the water was, and after his horse was satisfied, instead of
returning by the way he went in, concluded to cross the stream and come
out on our side. The water was deeper than he anticipated and his horse
nearly lost his footing. However, when he got to our side, he urged his
horse to climb out at a point where the bank was steep. In this effort
he fell over backward, Custer going out of sight in the water. In an
instant, however, he was up on his feet and the horse struggled out amid
the shouts of the spectators, when, mounting his horse, the march was
resumed. The dust at this time was so thick that one could not see more
than a set of fours ahead, and in a few minutes, when it settled on his
wet clothes and long wet hair, Custer was an object that one can better
imagine than I can describe.
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR GENERAL D. McM. GREGG]
In a short time, Kilpatrick, at the head of our column, met Fitzhugh
Lee's command at Aldie, and drove it through the town, where a desperate
fight occurred just beyond it, the enemy being strongly posted there
behind stone walls. As soon as the first shots were heard, General Gregg
hurried to the front and took his position on a hill just beyond and to
the right of the town, upon which Kilpatrick had posted a battery. It
was then found that Kilpatrick was outnumbered, all his command had
been charging and he had no reserves. General Gregg then directed me to
go back and bring Colonel Irwin Gregg, commanding the Second Brigade, by
a short cut back of the town, through the woods, to this part of the
field as quickly as possible. Just as I went over the ridge to carry
this order, I met the First Maine cavalry, with Colonel Doughty at its
head, coming onto the field. As I passed him, the Colonel, who knew me,
laughingly remarked, "You are going in the wrong direction." I replied:
"Yes, I know it, but I will be back in a few minutes." Very shortly I
returned to this spot with Colonel Gregg at the head of his brigade,
when I saw a man leading a horse upon which was a body, evidently dead,
as his arms were hanging on one side and the feet on the other, a man
supporting it. Inquiring, "Whom have you got there?" the man replied,
"Colonel Doughty." The Colonel, who was a most gallant man, as soon as
he arrived on the field at a moment most critical for Kilpatrick,
charged at the head of his regiment, routing a charge of the enemy that
had repulsed the Fourth New York, and then charged upon dismounted men
behind stone walls, where he received two bullets through his breast. It
was reported that night that some of the prisoners we had taken had said
that the old fellow riding at the head of his regiment seemed so brave
they hated to shoot him. This charge, however, routed the enemy, and,
Irwin Gregg having arrived with his remaining regiments, they withdrew.
That night was rather a blue time for us. Lieutenant Whitaker, a fine
officer of my regiment, was among the killed, and the First
Massachusetts cavalry had suffered severely. Our men induced a
wheelwright in the village to work that night making coffins for some of
the officers who had been killed.
On the second day after occurred the fight at Middleburg. On this
occasion Colonel Irwin Gregg's brigade had the advance. The enemy had
been forced back to a strong position on a ridge, their lines occupying
the right and left of the turnpike in the edge of woods covering the
ridge on both sides of the road. On the right, in front of the enemy,
was a cleared field, on the far side of which were also woods in which
Colonel Gregg had two of his regiments, one dismounted, and one mounted
ready to charge at a favorable moment. The Tenth New York cavalry was
down the road in reserve. The enemy's battery was posted on the left of
the pike and on our right as we faced them. Just below this battery, the
ground receding, was a large wheat field and behind a stone wall
parallel to the pike they had a line of dismounted men, their battery
firing into the woods where Colonel Gregg's two regiments were. General
Gregg was with our battery on a ridge some distance back. As the enemy
were making a determined stand General Gregg turned to me and said:
"Ride up to Colonel Gregg, present my compliments, and ask him why he
does not drive those people out of there." As I rode to deliver this
message I wondered how Colonel Gregg would receive it from me, who was
not then a commissioned officer, though he knew me as the General's
clerk.
When I reached the woods in which his command was, I started to ride in,
when an orderly holding a couple of horses called out, "Here, you can't
go mounted through there." Asking him then if Colonel Gregg was in there
he replied that he was, and that he was holding his horse. Leaving my
horse with this man I walked through the woods on the edge of which was
Colonel Gregg's line. He was standing with his shoulder against a tree
at the very front of it. As I approached him he reached out, grabbed me
by the arm, saying, "Keep back, they will hit you," and drew me up
alongside of him where we were somewhat protected by the tree. He then
said, "Well, what is it?" I then repeated General Gregg's message,
expecting an irritated reply, since it seemed to imply a censure.
Instead of that, he, in the mildest manner possible, said: "I will tell
you. You see their line across this clearing?" Replying "Yes," he
continued: "You see where their guns are on the right of the road
covering this, and you also see a line of dismounted men behind that
stone wall at the wheat field. Now, if I order a charge across there it
will be subjected to an enfilading fire from those men behind the wall
and it will be very expensive of men." He then asked me if the General
had a spare regiment that he could send around in a ravine beyond the
wheat field, have them dismount and crawl through the wheat unobserved
and attack the men who were facing him from behind the stone wall. I
told him there was, and he asked me to go back and explain the matter,
saying, "If the General will send some men to get those fellows started
behind that wall I will charge." I returned and described the situation
to General Gregg, who directed a battalion of the Harris Light, I think,
to make a detour, crawl through the wheat field, and attack the men
behind the wall, who were practically right under the guns of the enemy,
which were, however, firing over their heads across the road into the
woods from which they were expecting a charge to be made. The General
then directed me to return and tell Colonel Gregg to charge as soon as
the men behind the stone wall were attacked. In due time the Harris
Light suddenly appeared only a few rods in the rear of the Confederates
behind the wall, who, without any warning, received a volley in their
backs. They were at once in confusion and at that moment the bugle
sounded the charge and the First Maine and Fourth Pennsylvania from the
woods, and the Tenth New York in column on the turnpike, charged and
took the ridge, the Confederate battery getting away just in the nick of
time. I recall seeing the body of one of their colonels lying out in the
turnpike just near where their guns had stood. This finished the fight
for that day. This incident is mentioned somewhat in detail because I
think that Colonel Gregg's coolness and solicitude for the safety of his
men, where, by the use of a little strategy a needless loss of life was
saved, deserve recognition.
The following day, which I think was Sunday, the three divisions of the
cavalry corps, including General Gregg's, drove the enemy steadily back
without much resistance on their part until we reached Upperville. There
was open country at the outskirts of the town, and to the left as we
approached it were woods. As our men attempted to charge down the main
street they were met by a murderous fire from behind a high hedge, and
at the same moment the enemy charged from the woods on the left and
drove them back. For a few minutes the situation seemed most critical,
and just then a piece of shell struck General Gregg's horse in the
stomach behind the saddle girth, grazing the General's leg. The horse
sank under him and in an instant one of his orderlies dismounted, gave
the General his horse, and took the saddle from the wounded animal. At
this moment General Gregg ordered a cavalry regiment, I think the Sixth
Regulars, who were nearby in a field, to make a counter charge, which,
after a little delay caused by the presence of a stone wall, they did.
This charge, with our men, who rallied, co-operating, resulted in
driving the enemy back into and through the town. To our surprise, the
General's wounded horse had struggled to his feet and was running beside
him with his nose against his leg, his entrails dragging on the ground.
Noticing this, he exclaimed, "For God's sake, somebody shoot him!"
Whereupon I discharged my pistol in the horse's ear, which killed him.
Just then, as we approached the entrance to the town, I heard Nick, the
General's bugler, calling me to come and help him. Looking around I
found Nick trying to ward off the blows of an infuriated German of our
army, who was trying to sabre a Confederate boy who had been wounded and
was lying down on his horse's neck. I immediately interfered, and with
my sabre parried a blow intended for the boy, when the German excitedly
exclaimed, "Vy, he's a Reb," when I replied, "Suppose he is, can't you
see he's done for?" Whereupon, after a brief altercation the German rode
on. Nick then led the boy's horse out, and the command moved on, the
enemy having broken. We soon met one of our doctors, and being anxious
to know if the boy was mortally wounded, we took him to a nearby house
where three ladies came to the gate, and, when they saw it was a
Confederate soldier, began to cry. We carried him to a room, turned a
chair up for him to recline on, when the doctor opened his shirt and
found a bullet had entered his breast. The boy turned to the women who
were standing around, pointed to little Nick, and faintly remarked,
"There's the only friend I had to-day." We then left the doctor with
him, mounted our horses, rode on, and soon joined the General.
The enemy were driven to Ashby's Gap. This battle and those of the
preceding days demonstrated the fact that Lee's army was on its way to
Maryland.