Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/157

 Brook Church Fight. 141

This shows, I regret to say, how unreliable his statements are, as he soon had full proof of by that same " Rebel cavalry."

That the reader may see what a desperate state they were in at Meadow bridge, I refer to volume 67, pages 791, 813, 814, 819, and 835. He lost 625 men on his raid and 1,003 horses volume 67, page 185, and volume 68, page 851. We had no force to follow Sher- idan, and it was useless, as, after his passage of the Chickahominy, he could easily connect with Butler on the James, as he did, near Haxall's Landing on May I4th.

JAMES B. GORDON KILLED.

Our great loss at Brook Church was the gallant and glorious James B. Gordon. The Fifth loved him as its commander during the Gettysburg campaign, and, as his entire brigade did, for his splendid courage and merit in all respects. He was the Murat of the Army of Northern Virginia, and had he lived he would have added increased lustre to our North Carolina cavalry. I want to identify him in closer relation in this way, and, therefore, I state that one of his sisters was the mother of Messrs. R. N. and James Gordon Hackett, of Wilkes. Wilkes, was rather famous for such cavalrymen Colonel W. H. H. Cowles was born, and now lives there.

The attack on Kennon's Landing was the most useless sacrifice of time and men and horses made during the war. The brigade was camped May 23d near Hanover Junction, recuperating a little from the terrible ride and fighting of the Sheridan raid. Late that after- noon an order came to each captain of our regiment for a "detail of picked men for specially dangerous work." The Fifth regiment furnished about 225 men and officers, under command of Major Mc- Neill. There were surely not over 1,000 men on the expedition from our brigade. Wilson's wharf was a fortified post of great nat- ural and artificial strentgth on the James river, far below City Point, and consequently fully in the enemy's lines. It was forty-seven miles in a straight line, by best military maps, from Hanover Junc- tion. It consisted of a fort built in semi-circle form on a bluff of the river with each end resting on the James, with heavy parapets and a canal of water the entire front of the half circle. There was open ground for several hundred yards all around the fort covered with abattis and large fallen pine trees to impede assailants. If we could ever have taken it we never could have held it. The expedition was