Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/132

118 who was shelling the Richmond defenses. That officer, seeing he was between the upper and the nether millstone, took horse and got out toward the Chickahominy, which he crossed, and went into camp at the Meadow Bridges, the Marylanders being on the side nearest Richmond. During the night Hampton came down on him with the First and Second North Carolina cavalry and ran him out of his camp. He stood not on the order of his going, but went at once, and at daylight Johnson and the Marylanders struck his trail. During the whole day they incessantly charged his rear guard and delayed and hindered his march. The ferry boats on the Pamunkey had all been sunk by Colonel Johnson's order as soon as he was notified of the movement of the enemy's cavalry by General Lee, the river was nowhere fordable, and Kilpatrick's only escape was by the peninsula to Fortress Monroe, or to a force sent thence to relieve and rescue him. At Old Church he was obliged to turn and fight. He put his 3,000 men and six guns in line of battle and sent one regiment out to charge his pursuers, He hadn't an idea of who or what they were. They might be Hampton with the whole of the Confederate cavalry pushing to gobble him up. The Federal charge drove the Marylanders back a mile with a loss of two men killed and one prisoner. As they were reforming to renew their attacks on Kilpatrick's rear guard, a courier reported that a heavy column was moving rapidly up on Colonel Johnson's rear and was then less than half a mile distant. Johnson had just time to dismount his men and rush them into the woods on each side of the road, but had not time to get his led horses out of the way when the Federals charged. They went through and the remnant rejoined Kilpatrick a mile distant, but the Marylanders killed, wounded and captured over a hundred men. This last detachment was a part of Dahlgren's command. Colonel Dahlgren, his communication with Kilpatrick having been cut off by the capture