1. I.
There is a young gentleman in Virginia bearing a name so
illustrious that, if I were to give it, the most ardent opponents
of the “F. F. V.'s” would take a certain historic interest in what
I am going to relate. When I say that he is called Lieutenant
W—, you cannot possibly guess his name. But to the curious
incident with which I propose to amuse those readers who take
an interest in the veritable occurrences of the great struggle just
terminated.
On the ninth day of June, 1863, there took place at Fleetwood
Hill, near Brandy Station, in Culpeper, the greatest and most
desperate cavalry conflict of the war. Nearly twenty-five thousand
horsemen fought there “all a summer's day”—as when
Earl Percy met the Douglas in the glades of Chevy Chase—and
the combat was of unexampled fury. General Stuart, commanding
all the cavalry of General Lee's army, had held a grand
review some days before, in the extensive fields below the Court-House,
and a mimie battle had taken place, preceding the real
one. The horse artillery, posted on a hill, fired blank cartridges
as the cavalry charged the guns; the columns swept by a great
pole, from which the white Confederate flag waved proudly in
the wind. General Lee, with his grizzled beard and old gray
riding-cape, looked on, the centre of all eyes; bands played, the
artillery roared, the charging squadrons shook the ground, and
from the great crowd assembled to witness the imposing spectacle
shone the variegated dresses and bright eyes of beautiful
women, rejoicing in the heyday of the grand review.
But that roar of artillery in the mimic battle reached other
ears than those for which it was intended. There were some
friends of ours upon the opposite shore of the Rappahannock
who took even greater interest in the movements of General Lee
than the fair daughters of Virginia. The thunder of the artillery
was heard by them, and they at once conceived a burning curiosity
to know what all this firing meant. So, one bright morning
about dawn, they came across the river, about seventeen
thousand in number, to see what “Old Uncle Robert” was
about. Thereupon followed the hard fight of Fleetwood Hill.
A description of this long and desperate struggle is no portion
of the present subject. The Federal forces advanced in front,
on the right flank, on the left flank—everywhere. The battle
was thus fought, so to speak, “from the centre outwards.”
What the eye saw as Stuart rapidly fell back from the river and
concentrated his cavalry for the defence of Fleetwood Hill,
between him and Brandy, was a great and imposing spectacle of
squadrons charging in every portion of the field—men falling,
cut out of the saddle with the sabre; artillery roaring, carbines
cracking—a perfect hurly-burly of conflict.
Some day, perhaps, the present historian may give a page to
this hard battle, and speak of its “moving accidents;” of the
manner in which the cannoneers of the horse-artillery met and
repulsed a charge upon their guns with clubs and sponge-staffs;
how that gallant spirit, P. M. B. Young, of Georgia, met the
heavy flanking column attacking from the side of Stevensburg,
and swept it back with the sabre; how the brave William H. F.
Lee received the charge upon the left and fell in front of his
squadrons at the moment when the Federal forces broke; and
how Stuart, on fire with the heat of battle, was everywhere the
soul and guiding spirit of the desperate struggle.
At four in the evening the assault had been repulsed, and the
Federal cavalry were in hasty retreat across the river again.
Many prisoners remained in the hands of the Confederates, but
they had also lost not a few; for the fight had been so “mixed
up,” and so many small detachments of the Southern cavalry had
been cut off and surrounded in the
mélée, that the captures were
considerable.
