ninety days. Upon my return to the front great changes
had taken place. General Torbert was in command of the First Division,
"Old Stand-By" Gregg retaining his own, the Second, and General Wilson
in command of the Third Division, with "Cavalry Sheridan" in command of
the corps.

On May 3, 1864, Gregg's division moved out from its winter quarters at
Warrenton, marched to the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford, and crossed
over to Ely's Ford on the Rapidan. We forced our way over the river,
taking the advance of the Second Corps into "The Wilderness" until we
came to Todd's Tavern on the Brock road. There we were dismounted and
moved to the left and front of a division of the Second Corps which was
hotly engaged, and we pressed back the right of the rebel line. During
this contest a gay-looking first lieutenant of the engineer corps from
General Meade's staff came up to me, asked if I was Captain Thomas, and
said that Gregg and Sheridan had sent him out there to me so that I
might show him a cavalry charge if we should have one. A few moments
afterwards an officer reported to me that General Davies, my brigade
commander, on whose staff I was serving, and two of his officers had
just been captured by the enemy. Learning the direction in which they
had been taken, I took a mounted squadron of the First New Jersey, the
nearest at hand, and said to the gay lieutenant, "Now is your chance
for a charge." We dashed through the enemy to the rescue of our
friends, the lieutenant far in advance of us all, and recaptured them.
This officer afterwards distinguished himself as a general in the
cavalry during the latter part of the war and on the Mexican frontier.
The dashing Mackenzie, for he it was, afterwards called me his
godfather for giving him his first baptism in a cavalry charge.

After our division had been relieved by the Second Corps, General
Sheridan, with his command, cut loose for a short time from the Army of
the Potomac and went on his successful raid around Lee's army,
destroying the latter's communication with Richmond. While on this
raid--at Beaver Dam Station, on the Fredericksburg and Richmond
Railroad--Custer captured a train of cars loaded with some of our
infantry who had been taken prisoners a few days before in the
Wilderness, and they expressed their delight by singing, "Ain't we glad
to get out of the Wilderness?" Our division remained as rear-guard,
while the advance were destroying trains, stores, and railroa