Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/140

 Reminiscences of Cavalry Operations. 139

Round Top I have stated the signal officer can see everything in the Valley for miles.) Thence Torbert hurried him back to the aid of Custer, whose rearguard had been harassed throughout the march. Sheridan, resenting the boldness of an enemy so lately routed, di- rected Torbert " to start at daylight and whip the Rebel cavalry, or get a whipping." Torbert was in the saddle at dawn on the Qth, and continuing the dispositions of the day before. Merrit was to move Sewell up the pike (I call attention to the line they now describe), the second brigade on his right and the first on the right of the second, connecting with Custer. (Thus you see this line connected from the Valley pike to the road at Tom's Brook, while our line could not reach and hold one- quarter of the distance.) A spirited fight of two hours ended in the rout of both Lomax and Rosser, Merrit chasing the former for twenty miles up the pike to Mt. Jackson, and Custer driving Rosser on the back road to Columbia Furnace. Merrit captured five cavalry guns and Custer six, as fair a division as was possible for an odd number of pieces to be shared ; about three hundred and thirty prisoners fell into the hands of the victors, to- gether with ambulances, caissons, a battery forge, the headquarters' wagons of Rosser, Lomax, Wickham, and Payne, and other wagons, forty-seven in number; in brief, "almost everything on wheels."

Of this engagement Torbert enthusiastically reports, that "the cavalry totally covered themselves with glory and added to their long list of victories the most brilliant of them all, and the most de- cisive the country has ever witnessed." Sheridan promptly sent the tidings to Grant: " I directed Torbert to attack at daylight this morning, and finish this ' Savior of the Valley.' The enemy after being charged by the cavalry, ran. They were followed by our men on the jump, twenty-six miles. I deemed it best to make this delay of one day and 'settle this new Cavalry General.' The engage- ment at Tom's Brook was a fine offset to the check received by Torbert at Milford, for the same two Union divisions had now routed the combined divisions of Lomax and Rosser, inflicting a loss of four hundred men, while Torbert had but nine killed and forty-eight wounded." [I do not see the offset in the same light.] The moral effect of Sheridan's victory at Tom's Brook was very great The Confederate cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley had been feeble com- pared with the infantry, and Sheridan had remarked while at Charles- town, that it was " in poor condition," and was kept so close to their infantry, that his own large and well appointed corps of horse- men "could not get at it." Everything is fair in war, but how