ttle band
was pushed the hardest. At one time, indeed, they seemed about to
undergo extermination; not that they wavered, but that they were so
vastly overpowered. It will remain to the latest time a matter of marvel
that so paltry a cavalry force could press back sixteen thousand
infantry; but when the infantry blew like a great barndoor--the simile
best applicable--upon the enemy's left, the victory that was to come had
passed the region of strategy and resolved to an affair of personal
courage. We had met the enemy; were they to be ours? To expedite this
consummation every officer fought as if he were the forlorn hope.
Mounted on his black pony, the same which he rode at Winchester,
Sheridan galloped everywhere, his flushed face all the redder, and his
plethoric, but nervous figure all the more ubiquitous. He galloped once
straight down the Rebel front, with but a handful of his staff. A dozen
bullets whistled for him together; one grazed his arm, at which a
faithful orderly rode; the black pony leaped high, in fright, and
Sheridan was untouched, but the orderly lay dead in the field, and the
saddle dashed afar empty. General Warren rode with Crawford most of the
afternoon, mounted likewise, and making two or three narrow escapes. He
was dark, dashing, and individual as ever, but for some reason or other
was relieved of his command after the battle, and Griffin was instated
in his place. General Sheridan ordered Warren to report to General
Grant's head-quarters, sending the order by an aid. Warren, on his own
hook, did not meet on Friday with his general success, and on Saturday
Sheridan was the master-spirit; but Warren is a General as well as a
gentleman, and is only overshadowed by a greater genius,--not
obliterated. Ayres, accounted the best soldier in the Fifth corps, but
too quietly modest for his own favor, fought like a lion in this pitch
of battle, making all the faint-hearted around him ashamed to do ill
with such an example contiguous. General Bartlett, keen-faced and active
like a fiery scimitar, was leading his division as if he were an
immortal! He was closest at hand in the most gallant episodes, and held
at nightfall a bundle of captured battle-flags. But Griffin, tall and
slight, was the master-genius of the Fifth corps, to which by right he
has temporarily succeeded. He led the charge on the flank, and was the
first to mount the parapet with his horse, riding over the gunners as
May did at Cerro Gord