Page:History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry in the War Between the States.djvu/143

Rh at Malvern Hill. We had ten or fifteen men wounded and some horses. The Colonel of the regiment was temporarily absent on leave.

We were recalled to that side of the river again on the 14th of August, and after covering the retreat of a North Carolina infantry regiment on the 15th, bivouacked near White's Tavern, on the Charles City road. The Thirteenth Regiment held the picket line some two miles in our front, along Fisher's Run. Early on the morning of the 16th General Chambliss and staff moved out, after giving orders that the Ninth and Tenth regiments should follow. The necessity of going a long distance for water had drawn a good many of our men away from the camp, and, unaware of any need of haste, the regiment was leisurely forming. The Tenth had moved forward, when a courier brought an order for us to move up at a trot. We had not gone over a mile, when our attention was arrested by a sharp volley of musketry in the woods to our right. The regiment was immediately dismounted and formed in line at right angles with the road, on the margin of a bottom densely covered with undergrowth and huckleberry bushes. The enemy opened fire on us at once, and it was returned as fast as we could load. This was continued until a man on our left was seen to fall as if shot from the rear. The author then galloped to the road, and found a body of dismounted cavalry beyond the road, and in our rear. The men were now faced about, and, keeping well under cover of the woods, were moved back. In this movement the flank of the regiment farthest from the road drew a volley from a body of the enemy who had advanced unperceived on that side. We were ordered to double-quick for a few hundred yards, and as soon as an open field was passed, we were halted and ordered to make a barricade.

While engaged in making the barricade a courier from Colonel J. Lucius Davis rode up with an order for us to continue to fall back. He further informed us that General Chambliss' horse had come in, and that he had been either