Page:History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry in the War Between the States.djvu/105

Rh we were ordered to pack our wagons and move them towards the Courthouse before daylight. Ere sunrise a long line of dismounted cavalrymen advanced over the hills east of Brandy Station, accompanied with artillery, and, followed by heavy columns of mounted men. Brigadier-General Lomax, in the absence of General Chambliss, was in command. The numbers of the enemy were overwhelming, and in the endeavor to check their columns in front, we were exposed to great danger of being surrounded by their forces threatening our flanks. The author had charge of the right wing, consisting of the Fifteenth Regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, dismounted, and a part of the Ninth, mounted. The force was insufficient to cover the ground assigned them, and a request was sent for a reinforcement. This was promised, and, it seems, was sent, but it came not. Finding both flanks heavily pressed, the author rode towards the centre to look for and direct the promised support, and he found both the centre and left in full retreat, and some distance in the rear. Orders, with a view to extricating the little command, were at once given, and our retreat commenced. Collins was directed to follow a line of ravines and then the railroad embankment, and Pratt was ordered with his mounted men to watch the left flank and rear. Riding with the brigade staff towards the right of our line, a bullet passed deep into the writer's leg, and the loss of blood forced him to move on to the Courthouse.

The dismounted men, in falling back, were charged twice before reaching the Courthouse, and some of them were captured. A dashing charge by our mounted squadron released a good many of our men, and captured some of the enemy in turn. A charge made by the enemy in the street of Culpeper resulted in the capture of a gun under escort of a squadron of the Ninth—the first ever taken. The command was gradually forced back towards the Rapidan. As they retired a dash by a mounted force on the wooded hills beyond the town was repulsed by our men, pistols being used at very close quarters.