Page:History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry in the War Between the States.djvu/118

112 and the Mattaponi we were instructed to keep in his front, and to advise General Stuart at Hanover Junction. Lieutenant Pollard, with his company, was placed, in conjunction with a squadron from Colonel Robins' regiment (Twenty-fourth Virginia Cavalry), on the line from the Mattaponi to the Dragon. By permission of General Fitz. Lee, Pollard, withdrew his company to King William, leaving a body of Home Guards to hold the picket line in his place.

About the middle of March a portion of Kilpatrick's command moved up through Gloucester into King and Queen county. They encountered Robins' picket near Little Plymouth, and their presence at that point was reported at our camp at nightfall. Our force in camp, numbering perhaps one hundred and fifty effective men, was made ready to march, and couriers were sent to our picket reserves with instructions to keep a sharp lookout for the enemy, and to report immediately any advance beyond Plymouth. No further intelligence was received until nine o'clock next morning. The enemy was then ten miles further up the country, and had routed the reserve and burned their camp near Carlton's Store.

The force was reported as very large, and it was concluded that Kilpatrick's whole command was present. Having orders to keep in the enemy's front, our aim was to get into the road leading up to Newtown a little in advance of him. Lieutenant Baker, of Company B, was sent with a detail of men to watch the enemy at Carlton's Store. The command, after crossing a small tributary of the Dragon at a bridge a mile or so from our camp, moved to Exol meeting-house, on the road leading towards Newtown. Within a few hundred yards of Exol, our picket and some Home Guards were met, from whom we learned that the enemy's column would reach the intersection of the roads before we did. The command was ordered to the right at once through a body of timber, and a direction taken so as to strike the road half a mile above Exol. Captain Oliver, with his company, who had been in