ctually cheered, so I have been informed. They had been
deceived by the audacity of Custer and his men in the first place and by
the cleverness with which they eluded capture in the second.

The battle of Shepherdstown was the last in which Colonel Alger was
engaged. While the brigade was lying in camp on the Maryland side
awaiting orders, he was taken sick and was sent to hospital by order of
the brigade surgeon. He was assigned to special duty by order of
President Lincoln and did not rejoin. The esteem in which he was held by
General Custer and the confidence which that officer reposed in him to
the last moment of his service in the brigade is amply evidenced by the
selection of him to lead the attack on Kershaw at Front Royal and to
bring up the rear at Shepherdstown. The coolness and ability of the
officers and the intrepidity of the men in the Michigan cavalry brigade
were never more thoroughly tested than in those two battles. Custer was
the hero of both and Alger was his right arm. At Meadow Bridge, at
Yellow Tavern and in all the battles of that eventful campaign, wherever
they were associated together, wherever the one wanted a man tried,
true, trained and trustworthy, there he would put the other. No
misunderstandings that arose later can alter the significance or break
the force of these cold facts.

In the battle of Shepherdstown Captain Frederick Augustus Buhl, of the
First Michigan was mortally wounded, dying a few days later. He was a
Detroit boy, and a classmate of mine in Ann Arbor when the war broke
out. I was deeply grieved at his death as I had learned to love him like
a brother. He was conspicuous for his gallantry in all the engagements
in which he participated, especially at Front Royal and Shepherdstown.

For two days the brigade was lost. For a time the report of its capture
was generally credited. That it escaped, no thanks were due to General
Torbert, the chief of cavalry. It is not likely that he knew anything
about what a predicament he had left Custer in. The latter was, as
usual, equal to the emergency.

I must pass now rapidly over a period of nearly a month, devoted, for
the most part, to reconnoitering and retreating, to the eve of the
battle of Winchester.

September 18, about 8 o'clock in the evening, I went to headquarters to
consult Dr. Wooster, brigade surgeon, about the condition of my health.
I was very feeble, unable to eat, my eyes and skin the color of certain
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