Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/161

 Gen. \V.t.i, Hampton* t Cattle Raid. 1 1:

On the I3th Lieutenant John F. Lanneau, of Hampton's engineer corps, wrote Major McClellan, Hampton's adjutant-general, for a detail of forty men and two commissioned officers from Butler's and W. H. F. Lee's Divisions. He would furnish the detachment with tools ; they would be armed with pistols, and would serve during the expedition as a mounted engineer troop under his direction. He designated Lieutenant Johnson, Company A, Fourth South Carolina Cavalry, and Lieutenant Bauskett, Sixth South Carolina Cavalry, as suitable officers to take charge of the detail from General Butler's Division.

The detail from General W. H. F. Lee's Division was ordered to report to Lieutenant F. Robertson at General W. H. F. Lee's head- quarters, and tools would be furnished them by Lieutenant Lanneau. The men were to be selected from those accustomed to the use of the axe.

BUGLER SOUNDS "BOOTS AND SADDLE."

On the morning of the I4th of September, 1864, long before day- light, we were aroused from our camp by the notes of the bugle sounding " boots and saddle," and the command to which I belonged (the Stuart Horse Artillery) was ordered to saddle up and move out behind the Thirteenth Virginia Cavalry. We waited, seated on our horses, for a long time rail waiting seems long and while we waited we speculated upon where we were going and what we were going for. So little do soldiers know of the intentions of their officers that some said we were going to surprise and capture a brigade of negro troops, and we began in a spirit of humor to tell what we were going to do with our share of the negroes. We had no intimation nor idea that beeves had any place in the picture at all.

General Hampton, in his account, says: "On the morning of the I4th I moved with the division of Major-General W. H. F. Lee, the brigades of Rosser and Dearing, and a detachment of 100 men from Young's and Dunnovant's Brigades under command of Lieutenant- Colonel Miller, Sixth South Carolina Cavalry, and moved down the Rowanty creek to Wilkinson's bridge, on that stream, where the command bivouacked that night."

The command left Wilkinson's bridge at an early hour on the isth, id struck out on a trail for Sycamore Church, in Prince George )unty, a point most central and nearest to the cattle, and the place where the largest force of the enemy was camped. General Hamp- ton's idea was that by disposing them here it made it impossible for