k from 'sixty-one, when they came to Virginia,
until now, when all was lost, "_Tout perdu_"--it was the motto of the
occasion.

The stag was in the toils, but the end was not yet. We could hear the
rush, the shouts and pistol shots, where the enemy mounted and in
force had attacked the train; the artillerymen having no arms could
make no fight, as they could not use their pieces. We could do nothing
(being closely pressed by a superior force of their dismounted men)
but fall back upon the town toward our main body, making the best
front we could, leaving the road and marching under cover of the
timber on the side, being on foot giving us a better position to
resist any attack that might be made upon us by the cavalry.

The fifth squadron of the Seventh, that had been thrown out as
skirmishers when we first came on the ground, had kept their position
covering our left flank when the fight at the batteries was going on.
And when we commenced falling back after the guns, the adjutant,
Lieutenant Capers, was sent to bring them to the road, so as to join
the regiment. They had also been dismounted, and their horses sent
with the rest. He found them, led them to the road, and, on getting on
it at a point nearer to the town than where we struck it, hearing the
bugles and the rush of the cavalry on the train, he at once posted the
companies, with their captains, Doby and Dubose, in the woods
immediately on the road-side, and with the parting salutation, "Take
care of yourselves, boys," (he had been a private in one of the
companies, and both were from his native district), dashed back to his
place in the regiment and disappeared round a turn in the road. They
had scarcely lost sight of him when a heavy volley rang out, and his
horse came round the bend at full speed without his rider, jumping
over in his fright a broken caisson that lay across the road--the
horse, a very fine roan, the one he was riding when, at "Amelia
Spring," he, Capers, was the only one of the five in advance who
escaped, to meet his fate that night, pierced by a dozen balls; the
whole fire of the column was concentrated upon him, for we found his
body next day. Some kind hand had given him a soldier's grave; some
one, most likely of those who fought us, who could not but respect and
admire the gallant young fellow lying in his blood, and with the
feeling developed by a soldier's life, "So be it to me and mine in my
sorrow as I may be to thee this day." A