lose upon him. Rushing it, he thrust his precious battle flag into a fire
which was blazing on the hearth. The painted silk flashed up in flame, and
by the time that his pursuers broke in, it was ashes!

His life was spared in consideration of his devoted bravery, and he
subsequently received a commission from the Governor of the Commonwealth,
in recognition of his heroic deed.

The losses of the Confederates in this action were at least a half greater
in number than Washburn's whole force. By their own report, there were a
hundred killed and wounded, among them a general, one colonel, three
majors and a number of officers of lower grade.

The Battle at High Bridge was at first thought to have been a useless
sacrifice. It was a sacrifice indeed, but it unquestionably hastened the
termination of the war, by days, and perhaps weeks.

After the surrender, Lee's Inspector General said to Ord,

"To the sharpness of that fight, the cutting off of Lee's army at
Appomattox was probably owing. So fierce were the charges of Colonel
Washburn and his men, and so determined their fighting, that General Lee
received the impression that they must be supported by a large part of the
army, and that his retreat was cut off."

Lee consequently halted and began to intrench; and this delay gave time
for Ord to come up, and enabled Sheridan to intercept the enemy at
Sailor's Creek.

The Confederate General Rosser said to a member of the regiment whom he
met after the war:

"You belonged to the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry? Give me your hand! I
have been many a day in hot fights. I never saw anything approaching that
at High Bridge. While your colonel kept his saddle, everything went down
before him!"

The Confederate troops at High Bridge were Rosser's and a part of Fitz
Hugh Lee's divisions.

"Was your colonel drunk or crazy this morning, that he attacked with less
than one hundred men the best fighting division of the Confederate
cavalry?" asked a rebel officer of a wounded captain of the Fourth; "We
have seen hard fighting, but we never heard of anything like this before!"

The Confederate officers had at first utterly refused to credit the
stories of their prisoners, insisting that the small force would never
have fought so fiercely unless it had been the advance of a strong column.

Grant says in his memoirs.

"The Confederates took this to be only the advance of a larger column
which had headed them off, and so stopped t