p, the bridle reins would naturally slacken and the horse
begin to forge ahead. My position in the column was in rear of the
officers of the staff, and with the General's orderly and bugler.
Instead of restraining the horse, my comrades and the staff officers
would open the way and urge him along while I, sitting upright but fast
asleep, would ride alongside of our dignified General and sometimes
ahead of him before he noticed me, when invariably he would wake me up,
grabbing me by the arm and saying, "Meyer, wake up." Chagrined I would
return to my place, the staff officers and orderlies greatly amused.
This incident occurred so frequently on this Stoneman raid that it
evidently made an impression on the General, because, meeting him some
twenty years after the war at a reunion in Philadelphia he, on greeting
me, introduced me to a group of officers and immediately recalled the
fact of my so often being asleep on horseback. One day my horse strayed
from the road and followed a fence up a bank until he came to a point
where the slope reached the fence and he could go no farther, when the
General called out, "Wake him up, he will break his neck." The jolt of
the horse, however, sliding down the slope into the road awakened me,
though I did not fall off. The only penalty I suffered from sleeping on
horseback was the occasional loss of a cap and the scratching of my face
by the branches of trees, but it undoubtedly had much to do with my
being able to withstand the fatigue incident to our campaigns, since
the fact is that I never was off duty for a single hour, by reason of
sickness, during my whole term of service.

CHAPTER VI

On the 9th of June, 1863, occurred the battle of Brandy Station, in
which more cavalry were engaged than in any battle of the Civil War.
General Buford's division had crossed the Rappahannock River at Beverly
Ford early in the morning. General Gregg's division crossed at Kelly's
Ford, and General Duffie farther down the river, the latter being under
General Gregg's command and supposed to accompany him. As we were
approaching Brandy Station we heard the heavy cannonading of Buford's
attack, when General Gregg, with the brigades of Colonel Windham and
Colonel Kilpatrick, hurried to the battlefield. Around the station and
between Culpeper and the Rappahannock the country was open and favorable
for cavalry engagements. Indeed, there was one there at every advance
and retreat of the army durin