; twice they halted, and poured in volleys, but
came on again like the surge from the fog, depleted, but determined;
yet, in the hot faces of the carbineers, they read a purpose as
resolute, but more calm, and, while they pressed along, swept all the
while by scathing volleys, a group of horsemen took them in flank. It
was an awful instant; the horses recoiled; the charging column trembled
like a single thing, but at once the Rebels, with rare organization,
fell into a hollow square, and with solid sheets of steel defied our
centaurs. The horsemen rode around them in vain; no charge could break
the shining squares, until our dismounted carbineers poured in their
volleys afresh, making gaps in the spent ranks, and then in their
wavering time the cavalry thundered down. The Rebels could stand no
more; they reeled and swayed, and fell back broken and beaten. And on
the ground their colonel lay, sealing his devotion with his life.

Through wood and brake and swamp, across field and trench, we pushed the
fighting defenders steadily. For a part of the time, Sheridan himself
was there, short and broad, and active, waving his hat, giving orders,
seldom out of fire, but never stationary, and close by fell the long
yellow locks of Custer, sabre extended, fighting like a Viking, though
he was worn and haggard with much work. At four o'clock the Rebels were
behind their wooden walls at Five Forks, and still the cavalry pressed
them hard, in feint rather than solemn effort, while a battalion
dismounted, charged squarely upon the face of their breastworks which
lay in the main on the north side of the White Oak road. Then, while the
cavalry worked round toward the rear, the infantry of Warren, though
commanded by Sheridan, prepared to take part in the battle.

The genius of Sheridan's movement lay in his disposition of the
infantry. The skill with which he arranged it, and the difficult
manoeuvres he projected and so well executed, should place him as high
in infantry tactics as he has heretofore shown himself superior in
cavalry. The infantry which had marched at 21/2 P. M. from the house of
Boisseau, on the Boydtown plank-road, was drawn up in four battle lines,
a mile or more in length, and in the beginning facing the White Oak road
obliquely; the left or pivot was the division of General Ayres, Crawford
had the center and Griffin the right. These advanced from the Boydtown
plank-road, at ten o'clock, while Sheridan was thundering