than his share of fighting; that when
the Reserve brigade advanced to the assault on the right it was supposed
that the attack would be pressed on the left; that it was not so pressed
and that his brigade suffered unduly on that account. This is another
case of a man being unable to see all that is going on in a battle. The
Michigan brigade was on the left of the line. It was the first brigade
engaged. It began the fight and stayed in it till the end. Harder
fighting has rarely been done than that which fell to the Michigan men
in that battle. Several attempts were made to drive the enemy from their
front. The First Michigan especially made a charge across an open field
in the face of a terrible fire from behind breastworks, going half way
across before they were repulsed. When the First Michigan could not
stand before a storm of bullets, no other regiment in the cavalry corps
need try. That is a certainty. The losses in killed and wounded were
very severe, as will be shown in a table printed at the end of this
chapter.

[Illustration: SERGEANT AVERY]

The fighting continued till ten o'clock that night, when Sheridan
decided to withdraw and abandon the expedition. It is worthy of remark
that the entire division was unable to advance one inch beyond the place
where the advance guard first encountered the enemy and where Sergeant
Avery made the reconnoissance which revealed to General Custer the true
situation. Poor Avery was killed while doing his duty as he always did
in the very front of the battle in the place of greatest danger. Captain
Lovell and Lieutenant Luther Canouse of the Sixth were wounded; Captain
Carr, and Lieutenants Pulver and Warren of the First Michigan were
killed, and Captain Duggan and Lieutenant Bullock of the same regiment
wounded. Captains Hastings and Dodge of the Fifth were wounded; also
Lieutenant Colonel Brewer of the Seventh was wounded on the eleventh.

The casualties in the two days' fighting at Trevilian Station were very
severe. The losses in killed and died from wounds received in the action
aggregated in the brigade forty one, as follows:[28]

First Michigan 13
Fifth Michigan 8
Sixth Michigan 17
Seventh Michigan 3
---
Total 41

Of prisoners lost there were in all two hundred and