Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/459

 Two ( 'a rain/ (' hifftniwt. 453

Tavern, and his story, while in the main correct and not intentionally inaccurate, is, nevertheless, not wholly consistent with actual events. Here is Governor Fitzhugh Lee's account of that battle in which he participated. His narration was made in an address delivered on the 1 8th of June of the present year when a monument, erected on the spot where General Stuart fell, was dedicated. He said :

" Probably the Confederate capital was never in such danger of cap- ture, from the moment it was first beleaguered by the hosts of the enemy to the time of its final fall, as it was on the day of the fierce battle at Yellow Tavern. At that time Lee was confronting Grant and his powerful army near Spotsylvania Courthouse. General But- ler was pressing close upon the lines near Petersburg, while Rich- mond nearly stripped of troops, depended chiefly for defense upon the local forces, composed of the employees in the government offices and workshops. It was at this critical moment that General Grant sent out a strong force of cavalry under Sheridan, whose reputation as a cavalry commander was already at its highest, to march rapidly upon Richmond and capture it before the city could be reinforced.

On the 8th of May, 1864, the Federal cavalry corps was concen- trated near Fredericksburg, and on the morning of the Qth marched by Hamilton's Crossing to the Telegraph road, and moving to the right of General Lee's right flank, marched to Beaver Dam station on the Newport News and Mississippi Valley railroad, and from that point by the Louisa or "Old Mountain Road," via Glen Allen, a station on the Fredericksburg railroad, to the Yellow Tavern. His command consisted of three divisions under Generals Merritt, Wil- son, and Gregg, numbering, according to the official returns of the Federal army, dated May n. 18^4, 9,300 men in the saddle. His brigade commanders were Custer, Devins, Gibbs, Davies. J. Irvin Gregg, Mclntosh, and Chapman.

General Stuart followed these seven brigades of Sheridan with the three brigades of his command, viz: Lomax's and Wickham's of Fitz Lee's division, and a North Carolina brigade under General Gordon, making a total effective force of some 3,000 troopers. On the morning of the nth General Stuart intercepted, at Yellow Tav- ern, Sheridan's line of march, and succeeded in interposing his small force between Richmond and the Federal cavalry. The battle was desperate and bloody, but it resulted in the saving of the Con- federate capital at the cost of many a precious life. General Stuart was mortally wounded during the last part of the fight and died the