In a few minutes Sergeant Avery, one of the men who had gone with Birge
in pursuit of the enemy from whom I had escaped, came in with a
confederate prisoner splendidly mounted. Avery with cocked revolver was
making his prisoner ride ahead of him and thus brought him in. Receiving
orders to dismount, the man gave the horse a caress and with something
very like a tear in his eye said:

"That is the best horse in the Seventh Georgia cavalry."

The horse, with Avery's consent was turned over to me to take the place
of the captured black. He proved to be a prize. Handsome as a picture,
kind and well broken, sound, spirited but tractable, with a glossy coat
of silky luster, he was a mount that a real cavalryman would become
attached to and be proud of. I rode him and he had the best of care
until he succumbed to the cold weather and exposure near Winchester in
the winter following. He was a finely bred southern horse and could not
endure the climate.

Birge was not so fortunate. When he went after his prisoners he caught a
Tartar, or came very near it. The barricade was only partially
completed, when yelling in front,--that is in the road leading to the
right,--caused every one to look in that direction. Birge and a few of
his men were seen coming at full speed with what looked like a good big
squadron of the enemy at their heels. Mounting the Seventh Georgia
horse, I rode around the barricade and into the field where Lovell was
with his battalion. He had been placed there for just such an emergency.
Birge did not stop until he had leaped his mare over the barricade. When
the confederate column came up, Lovell surprised them with a volley
right in their teeth, which sent them "whirling" back into the woods out
of which they had come.

This was the end of the fighting at that point. Taking with him the
Seventh, under Lieutenant Colonel Brewer, and the battery Custer then
moved on toward Trevilian Station, leaving the First under Lieutenant
Colonel Stagg and the Sixth to bring up and look out for the rear. The
affray at the crossroads had occupied less time than it takes to tell
it. In giving the story it has been difficult to steer into the middle
course between a seeming desire to give undue prominence to one's own
part in the action, on one hand, and affectation of undue modesty, on
the other. The only course appeared to be to narrate the incidents as
they befell and leave it to the kind reader to judge the matter on its