contest every inch of ground so as to gain time.

When halted by the attack of Gregg and Gibbs, Pickett, desisting from
his pursuit of Devin, as already stated, turned his undivided
attention to this unexpected force, and with his preponderating
infantry pressed it back on the Five Forks road toward Dinwiddle,
though our men, fighting dismounted behind barricades at different
points, displayed such obstinacy as to make Pickett's progress slow,
and thus give me time to look out a line for defending the Court
House. I selected a place about three-fourths of a mile northwest of
the crossroads, and Custer coming up quickly with Capehart's brigade,
took position on the left of the road to Five Forks in some open
ground along the crest of a gentle ridge. Custer got Capehart into
place just in time to lend a hand to Smith, who, severely pressed,
came back on us here from his retreat along Chamberlain's "bed"--the
vernacular for a woody swamp such as that through which Smith
retired. A little later the brigades of Gregg and Gibbs, falling to
the rear slowly and steadily, took up in the woods a line which
covered the Boydton Road some distance to the right of Capehart, the
intervening gap to be filled with Pennington's brigade. By this time
our horse-artillery, which for two days had been stuck in the mud,
was all up, and every gun was posted in this line.

It was now near sunset, and the enemy's cavalry thinking the day was
theirs, made a dash at Smith, but just as the assailants appeared in
the open fields, Capehart's men opened so suddenly on their left
flank as to cause it to recoil in astonishment, which permitted Smith
to connect his brigade with Custer unmolested. We were now in good
shape behind the familiar barricades, and having a continuous line,
excepting only the gap to be filled with Pennington, that covered
Dinwiddie and the Boydton Road. My left rested in the woods about
half a mile west of the Court House, and the barricades extended from
this flank in a semicircle through the open fields in a northeasterly
direction, to a piece-of thick timber on the right, near the Boydton
Road.

A little before the sun went down the Confederate infantry was formed
for the attack, and, fortunately for us, Pennington's brigade came up
and filled the space to which it was assigned between Capehart and
Gibbs, just as Pickett moved out across the cleared fields in front
of Custer, in deep lines that plainly told how grea