Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/158

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Company I) went with the ist Regiment, and was the only one from the 6th Regiment that participated, and that happened by permis- sion of General Stuart, with whom it and the Rockingham compa- nies were great favorites. In the battles around Richmond, Com- pany D and the Rockingham company were the only two companies from the 6th that took part. After General Jackson had whipped Hanks, Fremont and Shields in the Valley, he left to pay his respects to McClellan. He took with him the Clarke and Rockingham com- panies, and left the rest of the cavalry in the Valley. In all but one of these sixty-one engagements there was hard fighting, resulting in the killing, wounding or capture of some of the company. When General Harney was captured there was no fighting. The train was stopped and surrounded, and Lieutenant (afterwards Major) Samuel J. C. Moon, of Clarke, went into the car, brought him out, and sent him to Richmond. There were numerous skirmishes and raids inci- dent to war, of which, for want of space, no mention has been made. At Gettysburg, the 6th Regiment, being on the right of our army, got in the rear of Meade, and had a hard hand-to-hand fight at a place called Fairfield with the 6th United States Regulars, in which the Regulars were badly whipped and fled ingloriously from the field. We thought that Meade was falling back, for everything was in the greatest confusion, and were grievously surprised when we were ordered back ourselves.

THE CAVALRY WAS THERE.

Many writers have been trying to find out where the cavalry was at Gettysburg, and if they had been with this writer, who was trying his level best to obliterate Meade' s army, they would have known at least where the 6th Regiment of Virginia Cavalry was. Thank God I have no inclination to criticise any officer, corps, division, brigade, regiment, or company in the whole service, for they deserve and will wear crowns of immortelles. My object, as stated, has been to show to the world in a straightforward and truthful manner the part performed by the 170 men who comprised the Clarke Cavalry, Company D, Sixth Regiment. These were all young men, the flower of Clarke, who kept themselves mounted, clothed, and armed throughout the war. Fifty-two of them only are left, one of whom is sixty-seven years old, and of the remaining fifty-one very few have yet reached or passed sixty. Every one of these survivors were at different times prisoners, and nearly every one of them wears a scar.