by Burke Davis
This meandering road was patrolled by two squadrons of the 5th U.S. Cavalry, one of them commanded by Captain W. B. Royall, who was in camp at Old Church, about eighteen miles east of Hanover Court House. Royall had placed his pickets with care, and at six A.M. of this Friday, June thirteenth, sent Lieutenant Edward Leib westward toward Hanover Court House.
Leib and F Company trotted quietly toward the court house village. They sighted Stuart's men at eleven o'clock.
"Pickets," Leib thought. He went up in person to scout and saw cavalry drawn up in column; two squadrons, he estimated, with about fifteen pickets in their front. Most of Stuart's column was hidden from him, and Leib was unsure whether he watched Confederates or his own men until he exposed himself and was charged by half a dozen yelling riders. Leib hurried back to his men and sent a message to Royall at Old Church: "Confederate troopers raiding. Two squadrons strong. Nothing to worry about." It was eleven thirty.
Leib pulled his men back, keeping out of sight of the raiders, and hurried toward safety.
There was as yet no suspicion anywhere in the Federal army that Stuart was cutting behind it in force.
The road went past remote landmarks: Taliaferro's Mill, Enon Church, and into Hawes Shop, the site of a wagon factory and forge. Here Leib halted and sent back a second report, giving his position.
Captain Royall replied with an order to fall back to Old Church, just as a sudden rush of Stuart's advance overwhelmed Leib's small picket and forced another retreat. Leib got off an appeal for help. He recalled the scene:
"I drew up in line under the brow of a hill on the side of the road, intending if my force were sufficient to charge; if not, to keep them in check with the pistol The enemy came on in large numbers. ... I felt most seriously the superiority of the enemy, who were
armed with rifles and shot-guns.. . . After I had emptied all of my pistols, I drew sabers and endeavored to charge, but finding they were coming up in greatly superior force on either flank and in front,
I thought it best to fall back."5
Things had a different look from Stuart's column. Cooke saw the skirmish open:
"A Federal officer at the head of a detachment came on at full gallop, very nearly ran into the head of our column, and then seeing the dense mass of gray coats, fired his pistol, wheeled short about and went back at full speed."
Stuart bellowed: "Form fours! Draw sabers! Charge!" The column pounded ahead and in a chase of two or three miles took several prisoners. Fitz Lee found himself among his prewar regiment, and halted to question captured troopers: "Is Robinson still sergeant? Is Brown alive? Where's old Jones?" The Federals laughed with the twenty-five-year-old colonel.
Stuart had the 9th Virginia in front, and its riders pressed the Federals so hard that an attempted stand at a bridge of the Totopotomoy was swept aside; flanking columns splashed the creek on either side, and pursuit continued.
The chase would remain a memory with Stuart, who saw in the Ninth's adjutant, Lieutenant W. T. Robins, a man after his heart:
"On, on dashed Robins, here skirting a field, there leaping a fence or ditch, and clearing the woods beyond, when not far from Old Church, the enemy made a stand, having been re-enforced."
Jeb could attack only in columns of fours along the road, and his final thought was: "I preferred to oppose the enemy with one squadron at a time, remembering that he who brings on the field the last cavalry reserve wins the day."
The next squadron went up. Its commander was Captain William Latane, a daring, handsome boy who was a great favorite with the command. Fighting spread into a woodland. Stuart poured in more troops, and the enemy broke. But Latane, riding down the nearest Federal officer, clashed with Captain Royall, who had come up with reinforcements. Latane cut a gash in the Federal's arm and chest, but Royall shot him with a pistol. Latane fell. A few gray troopers clustered about him as the column hammered on; he was dying.
The Federal horsemen wheeled twice more to receive charges, but were always driven by Stuart's yelling riders. The gray advance soon scattered, however, and Jeb called up Fitz Lee with the ist Virginia to take the lead. Lee pleaded with his commander.
"My old regiment's camp is just over there through the woods," he said. "The old Second—the one they now call the Fifth. Let me clean it out."
Stuart sent him off with a warning that he must not be long about the task.
Lee burst into the camp of the Federal 5th, looting and burning. Von Borcke saw it as an inspiring spectacle: "The whole camp was enveloped in one blaze, hundreds of tents burning together ... wonderfully beautiful. Many horses and mules, and two captured standards, were carried off with us."
The Prussian aide, staring through the woodlands from the roadway near Old Church, thought he saw the house occupied by General McClellan, surrounded by an ocean of white tents. He estimated the distance at two and a half miles.
Stuart now hesitated, and gathered the command. He later wrote:
"Here was the turning point of the expedition. Two routes were before me—the one to return by Hanover Court House, the other to pass around through New Kent, taking the chances of having to swim the Chickahominy, and make a bold effort to cut the enemy's lines of communication."
In brief, Stuart contemplated riding entirely around McClel-lan's army, completing a circle to Richmond of almost one hundred miles.
He reasoned that since he was already eighteen miles southeast of Hanover Court House, the enemy would expect him to retrace his steps and could intercept him.
He already knew what Lee had sent him to learn: The right flank of McClellan was "in the air" north of the Chickahominy. There were no trenches on the vital ridge near Totopotomoy Creek; the enemy could be struck in the flank by an infantry assault.
Esten Cooke was sitting his horse beside Stuart when the chief made up his mind:
"I looked at him. He was evidently reflecting. In a moment he turned round to me and said, 'Tell Fitz Lee to come along. I'm going to move on with my column.' "
Cooke had no doubts, from that instant, that Stuart planned to circle the enemy.
"I think the quicker we move now the better," Cooke said.
"Right," Stuart said. "Tell the column to move on at a trot."
The pace picked up. "The gayest portion of the ride," Cooke said, had begun. But he figured their chances of getting through alive at one in ten. "It was neck or nothing, now," he wrote.
The men went at half speed, picking up enemy stragglers and seizing wagons. They took wagons of champagne and cigars destined for some Federal general, and there was a quick popping of corks; officers stopped it soon, however, and the wagons burned.
There was an alarm: "Yankees in the rear!" The column whirled about, but there was nothing behind. A roar of laughter swept the column, and recurred through most of the afternoon. At almost every house women and children ran to the roadside, and riders jumped from saddles to embrace women, mothers, sisters, sweethearts. Cooke recalled: "These went quite wild at the sight of their sons and brothers. They laughed and cried and clapped their hands and fell into ecstasies of delight." One young woman threw her arms around a gray trooper, a brother she had not seen since the start of the war, "bursting into alternate sobs and laughter."
The column raced on, every man aware of the enemy network lying near them, but caught in something of the exhilaration Stuart felt:
The hope of striking a serious blow at a boastful and insolent foe, which would make him tremble in his shoes, made more agreeable the alternative I chose.
He added:
There was something of the sublime in the implicit confidence and unquestioning trust of the rank and file in a leader guiding them straight, apparently, into the very jaws of the enemy, every step appearing to them to diminish the faintest hope of extrication.
As Stuart's advance galloped within sight of enemy depots on the Pamunkey River, the Federal high command in his rear reacted strangely to news of the raid.
The Federal
cavalry commander was Stuart's father-in-law, Philip St. George Cooke, who was in camp three or four miles from the site of the skirmish between Stuart's vanguard and the pickets of Lieutenant Lieb.
Captain Royall got his first message from Lieb about noon, and sent up support, but the first message sent to General Cooke was hurried off much later. It was ten minutes before three P.M. when a lieutenant gave Cooke a dispatch announcing the raid.
Cooke wrote: "I immediately sounded 'To horse,' and ordered six squadrons ... to re-enforce." These bluecoats were moving by three P.M., and "half an hour later" drove in Confederate pickets near Hanover Courthouse; the gray riders ran. A man in a nearby house told the pursuers the story: From 3,000 to 5,000 Rebel cavalry, with artillery, passed eastward half an hour before. The commander of the party, Major Lawrence Williams, thought this an exaggeration—but he also picked up a report that Confederate infantry had been seen, a serious matter indeed.
Williams sent a platoon in the tracks of Stuart's column.
Back in General Cooke's headquarters, things moved more slowly. Cooke had called up some infantry support, but did not stir from his camp himself until eight P.M. when, with some cavalry and artillery, he marched for the scene of Stuart's first skirmish. He got there about ten P.M. A bluecoat infantry brigade had outmarched him there.
Already, it seemed, officers were looking askance at General Cooke, wondering if his strange lethargy stemmed from his affection for his daughter's husband.
General Fitz John Porter, commander of the sector, said: "I can only express surprise that General Cooke ... did not join earlier his command in front and there act as circumstances required, and that when General Cooke did pursue, he should have tied his legs with the infantry command.
"I have seen no energy or spirit in the pursuit by General Cooke of the enemy or [seen] exhibited the characteristics of a skillful and active guardian of our flanks."
General Cooke was aroused "about every half hour" during the night by orders from superiors. At midnight he was ordered to make large detachments from his force.
One order said that General Sykes had been directed to take command of Cooke's force, and would arrive in the morning. Another from General Porter, arriving at eleven P.M., ordered him to bring "all the information concerning the enemy you can get hold of." Half an hour later, he was ordered to "hold your own, and maintain your position. Do not attack a superior force."
About midnight there was word that the enemy was a little over a mile away, in the Hanover road. Cooke gave orders to march, but soon found that the report was false. He called off the movement and marched instead to Old Church. It was after daylight when he began the chase. He expected, he said, to meet the enemy momentarily in the hot morning of June fourteenth. By then, the gray column had left him hopelessly behind. There was only smoking debris to mark its trail.6
Stuart was now among McClellan's vital lines of supply, and at almost every turn of the road the squadrons found wagons to burn and stores to destroy. The column went past Bassett, Smith's Store, over Matadequin Creek. As he passed a homestead called Gar-lick's, Stuart sent two squadrons to a landing on the Pamunkey, where they found two Union transports at dock, loaded with the wagon trains of two New York regiments. They put both to the torch, and smoke rose through the late afternoon.
By now even John Esten Cooke, galloping up and down the column on Stuart's; errands, was wondering whether his uncle, the Federal cavalry commander, was not remiss in his duty, since there was no sign of pursuit.
Esten Cooke "laughed and joked" with the men to keep up their morale, but the strain already told on him; he was falling asleep in the saddle now and then, and would count twenty-five such lapses before the ride was over.
The column now swept down on Tunstall's Station, a depot where the road crossed the York River Railroad. Signs of Federal alarm were everywhere, wagons overturned, stores scattered.
A Negro man hailed them admiringly at the roadside, mistaking them for Union troops: "We got Richmond yet, boss? If we ain't, Vwon't be long, for McClellan and our boys is sure to fotch her!"
At Tunstall's, Stuart called artillery from the rear.
The nearest gun had fallen "into a tremendous mudhole." Its wheels sank to the axle in the pit, and neither popping whips nor swearing drivers could budge it.
One of Stuart s German-born sergeants shouted in inspiration, "Gat, Lieutenant, it can't be done! But put that keg on the gun, Lieutenant!"
A small barrel of captured whisky was placed on the gun, provoking "an exhibition of herculean muscularity." Cooke wrote:
"With eyes fixed ardently upon the keg, the powerful cannoneers waded into the mudhole up to their knees, seized the wheels of gun and caisson loaded down with ammunition, and just simply lifted the whole out, and put them on firm ground."
The gun wheeled ahead, flinging mud, its wonder-working keg drained at the gallop by the thirsty gunners. Stuart found no need for the gun, after all His scouts took the station without firing a shot, overpowering the fifteen or twenty pickets there. They cut the telegraph wires and went to work at tearing up the rails.
From the West, in billows of smoke, came a Federal train, bound for TunstalFs and the White House landing. Stuart hurried troopers beside the tracks, and waited as the train bore down upon them. Riders galloped with it, calling on the engineer to halt the train and surrender.
Captain Farley, riding with von Borcke, took the Prussian's blunderbuss and shot the engineer as he opened his throttle. Firing broke out, and as von Borcke said, "a battle of the strangest description now arose." The bluecoats huddled on their speeding flatcars in the open, returning the shots of Stuart's riders. After a few volleys the train was out of range to all except excited troopers like von Borcke, who gave chase with a revolver, plunging down the embankment and firing almost in the faces of the enemy. The train fled out of sight and the column halted. It was near sunset.
Just four miles beyond, on the Pamunkey, was Rooney Lee's plantation home, White House, now the chief Federal base, rich in supplies, where gunboats and loaded supply transports awaited looting. Lee probably urged Stuart to strike at this tempting target, and Jeb confessed he "could scarcely resist it," but he turned to the affairs at hand.
He had his men burn the nearby Black Creek bridge and a long wagon train abandoned by the enemy. Freight cars at the station, filled with hay and forage, were soon aflame, telegraph poles were felled, and, as Stuart wrote, the flames "illuminated the country for miles."
In this glow, and the dusty light of the full moon, Stuart turned them southwest on the long route toward Richmond. There was still the flooded river ahead of them, and there would be no safety until they had crossed it.
Von Borcke rejoiced at the close of the day: "My parched tongue was cleaving to the roof of my mouth, when one of our men galloped up to me, and held out a bottle of champagne, saying, 'Captain, you did pretty hot work today. I got this bottle for you out of McClellan's wagon. It will do you good.' Never in my life have I enjoyed a bottle of wine so much."
Stuart drove them on as darkness fell, trying to keep the column closed up, pushing the vanguard in the direction of the river.
Somewhere along this section of the route the renowned New York reporter, George Alfred Townsend, riding after news of the raiders, was almost snatched up by Stuart's men. He was startled by bluecoats riding by him "as if the foul fiend was at their heels."
"The Rebels jure behind!" one shouted. Townsend wrote: "I heard the crack of carbines behind ... buried myself in underbrush. . . . The roadway seemed shaken by a hundred hoofs. The imperceptible horsemen yelled like a war party of Comanches, and the carbines rang ahead, as if some bloody work was being done at every rod."
Townsend found the flaming wreckage of the Federal supply train, railroad cars and buildings. He rode to the White House landing and found panic; steamers had fled downstream, tradesmen were leaving, and soldiers were in turmoil. There was no sign of pursuit of the Confederate
s.7
Far behind Stuart, behind even the incipient Federal pursuit, the lone Confederate casualty, Captain Latane, was buried. Latane's younger brother, James, a minister, dropped out of Stuart's ranks and waited with the body at the roadside "while the ruck of pursuit swept by." He then hailed a corn cart and with the aid of its Negro driver emptied it of corn and carried the captain's body to West-wood, the plantation of Mrs. Catherine Brockenbrough, a few miles away. The mistress of the plantation sent James to rejoin Stuart with a fresh horse, and with the aid of a neighbor, Mrs. Willoughby Newton, and a few slaves buried Latane in a slave-made casket, covered with a cavalry cape. They could find no minister, and held services in the graveyard of the nearby plantation Summer Hill with their Negro workmen, a scene soon to be celebrated throughout the Confederacy by poets and painters.8
Southeast from Tunstall's Station toward the river was the settlement of Talleysville. Stuart urged his column along the road to that place. It was none too easy, for, as Stuart recorded: "The roads at this point were far worse than ours, and the artillery had much difficulty in passing. Our march was finally continued by bright moonlight."
The vanguard soon reached the "three or four houses known as Talleysville," with several Federal hospitals nearby. Stuart said, "I deemed it proper not to molest the surgeons and attendants in charge."
The command lay there until midnight to give stragglers a chance to catch up and close the column. The troopers pounced upon a few sutlers and their wagons, and ate the delicacies intended for the enemy. Cooke ate "in succession" figs, beef tongue, pickle, candy, tomato catsup, preserves, lemons, cakes, sausages, molasses, crackers, canned meats.
John Mosby found the summer night: "A carnival of fun I can never forget. Nobody thought of danger or sleep, when champagne bottles were bursting and wine was flowing in copious streams. All had perfect confidence in their leader. . . . The discipline of the soldiers for a while gave way to the wild revelry of Comus."9
