Merritt's brigade, moved out on the road to Tunstall's
Station to attack Hampton, posted an the west side of Black Creek,
Custer's brigade meanwhile moving, mounted, on the road to
Cumberland, and Devin's in like manner on the one to Baltimore
crossroads. This offer of battle was not accepted, however, and
Hampton withdrew from my front, retiring behind the Chickahominy,
where his communications with Lee would be more secure.

While at the White House I received orders to break up that depot
wholly, and also instructions to move the trains which the Army of
the Potomac had left there across the peninsula to the pontoon-bridge
at Deep Bottom on the James River. These trains amounted to hundreds
of wagons and other vehicles, and knowing full well the dangers which
would attend the difficult problem of getting them over to
Petersburg, I decided to start them with as little delay as
circumstances would permit, and the morning of the 22d sent Torbert's
division ahead to secure Jones's bridge on the Chickahominy, so that
the wagons could be crossed at that point. The trains followed
Torbert, while Gregg's division marched by a road parallel to the one
on which the wagons were moving, and on their right flank, as they
needed to be covered and protected in that direction only.

The enemy made no effort to attack us while we were moving the trains
that day, and the wagons were all safely parked for the night on the
south side of the Chickahominy, guarded by General Getty, who had
relieved Abercrombie from command of the infantry fragments before we
started off from the White House.

To secure the crossing at Jones's bridge, Torbert had pushed Devin's
brigade out on the Long Bridge road, on the side of the Chickahominy
where, on the morning of the 23d, he was attacked by Chambliss's
brigade of W. H. F. Lee's division. Devin was driven in some little
distance, but being reinforced by Getty with six companies of colored
troops, he quickly turned the tables on Chambliss and re-established
his picket-posts. From this affair I learned that Chambliss's brigade
was the advance of the Confederate cavalry corps, while Hampton
discovered from it that we were already in possession of the Jones's
bridge crossing of the Chickahominy; and as he was too late to
challenge our passage of the stream at this point he contented
himself with taking up a position that night so as to cover the roads
leading from Long Bridge to Westover, with t