The Real Custer (16 page)

Back at the front, George was plunged almost immediately into battle. After the victory at Culpeper, the Union line moved up to the Rapidan. General Lee had no intention of letting it stay there. On October 9, he launched a massive flanking maneuver around Meade's right aiming for Centreville, an offensive that became known as the Bristoe Campaign. The next day, as Lee's forces pressed north, Custer was ordered to pull back from his forward position to Kilpatrick's headquarters at James City, west of Culpeper. He arrived that afternoon to find the town already occupied by rebel cavalry under the command of his West Point friend P. M. B. Young. There was a brief battle in which the 5th Michigan charged the rebel positions. The cavalrymen were turned back by sharpshooters from the 1st South Carolina firing from behind a stone wall. Custer noted that “most of my command rested on their arms during the night.”

The next day Custer disengaged and headed east for Culpeper. On reaching the outskirts of the town, he learned that rebel cavalry were moving up behind him in force. The pursuers were Wade Hampton's division, under direct command of Jeb Stuart. Custer paused, expecting an attack that did not come. He then received urgent orders to make for the Rappahannock. The brigade moved through Culpeper with the band playing the “saucy air of Yankee Doodle,” according to Colonel Edward B. Sawyer of the 1st Vermont Cavalry, and in the faces of the inhabitants they could “plainly read the expression ‘good riddance.'”

The cavalry moved up the railroad line toward the river. Rebels again pressed from the rear, and more enemy troops emerged on Custer's left, “evidently attempting to intercept our line of march to the river,” he wrote. By the time Custer's men reached the familiar field of Brandy Station, skirmishing in his rear forced him to move his guns to the head of the column to keep them from falling into enemy hands. Fire also erupted from the south; a reinforced cavalry division under Fitzhugh Lee was moving toward them but had mistakenly brought their artillery to bear on Hampton's men, an error they soon corrected. Then a courier arrived with more bad news: enemy horsemen under General James B. Gordon had rushed ahead of the column and cut the route to the river crossing. “The heavy masses of the rebel cavalry could be seen covering the heights in front of my advance,” Custer wrote. “A heavy column was enveloping each flank, and my advance confronted by more than double my own number. The perils of my situation can be estimated.” As Colonel Sawyer put it, “The scene began to grow interesting.”

An artillery duel commenced while Custer weighed his options. Just then General Pleasonton rode up, having also been caught in the envelopment. Custer proposed a direct route out of the quandary: “cut through the force in my front, and thus open a way for the entire command to the river.” Pleasonton approved, and the push was on. Custer formed the 6th and 7th Michigan as a holding force, with the 5th and
1st facing the front on the right and left. “I informed them that we were surrounded,” Custer wrote. “We had either to cut our way out or surrender—which we had no intention of doing.”
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Custer struck up the band before the attack, “which excited the enthusiasm of the entire command to the highest pitch,” he said, “and made each individual member feel as if he was a host in himself.” Willard Glazier recalled that Custer, “the daring, terrible demon that he is in battle, pulled off his cap and handed it to his orderly, then dashed madly forward in the charge, while his yellow locks floated like pennants on the breeze.”
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Custer's men made “a magnificent charge,” Colonel Sawyer recalled, “but finding the rebel line formed beyond a ditch too wide for his horses to leap, had, after the exchange of a few rounds, been obliged to retire in considerable disorder.”

By this time Buford's cavalry had joined the fight, along with the rest of Kilpatrick's division. They formed on the high ground of Fleetwood Heights with Buford on the left and Kilpatrick on the right. Buford's men faced more level ground and made a massed charge against the encroaching rebels. Custer's men regrouped and attacked the force to the right, along with the First Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Henry E. Davies. The Federals “fought desperately for self-preservation,” Jeb Stuart recounted. “The woods near Brandy Station were speedily occupied by the sharpshooters of Lomax and Chambliss to resist the [Union] force moving from Fleetwood to the relief of the other column, and an engagement ensued of the most obstinate and determined character.”
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“The scene had become wild and exciting,” Colonel Sawyer wrote. “The batteries of the two divisions, and more than an equal number of guns on the rebel side (in all, probably forty), were vigorously playing. Charges and countercharges were frequent in every direction, and as far as the eye could see over the vast rolling field were encounters by regiments, by battalions, by squads, and by individuals, in hand-to-hand
conflict.” Glazier said that “no one who looked upon that wonderful panorama can ever forget it. On the great field were riderless horses and dying men; clouds of dust from solid shot and bursting shell occasionally obscured the sky; broken caissons and upturned ambulances obstructed the way, while long lines of cavalry were pressing forward in the charge, with their drawn sabres, glistening in the bright sunlight.”
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Chaos grew on the field. Lines were indistinct, charges and countercharges were uncoordinated, and the two forces became mixed. “It was among the heaviest [fighting] of the war,” recalled rebel John E. Cooke, “and for a time nothing was seen but dust, smoke, and confused masses reeling to and fro; nothing was heard but shouts, cheers, yells, and orders, mixed with the quick bang of carbines and the clash of sabres—above all, and the continuous thunder of the artillery. It was as ‘mixed up' as any fight of the war.”
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After two hours of fighting and maneuvering, the beleaguered Federal cavalry forced their way across the river, crossing in good order according to Custer. He had led his brigade on charge after charge during the battle, having two horses shot from under him but emerging unwounded.
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The last Union horsemen were on the north bank of the Rappahannock after nightfall, having narrowly escaped a major calamity. Shortly after the two divisions reached safety and the men were preparing to make camp, General Pleasonton received an urgent order from Meade's headquarters—do not cross the river.
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CHAPTER NINE

THE BUCKLAND RACES

A
fter escaping from the envelopment in the retreat from Culpeper, Custer sent for Major James Kidd of the 6th Michigan Cavalry to mount a reconnaissance mission on enemy forces near Gainesville. “It was my first personal interview with the great cavalryman,” Kidd wrote. “He was at his headquarters, in the woods, taking life in as light-hearted a way as though he had not just come out of a fight, and did not expect others to come right along. He acted like a man who made a business of his profession; who went about the work of fighting battles and winning victories, as a railroad superintendent goes about the business of running trains. When in action, his whole mind was concentrated on the duty and responsibility of the moment; in camp, he was genial and companionable, blithe as a boy.”
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Lee's unexpected drive north had forced Meade back forty-five miles to Centreville, and the campaign seemed to be a significant Confederate
victory. But three days after the brutal Brandy Station fight, Lee's Third Corps, under the command of Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, was badly mauled by outnumbered yet well-positioned Union defenders at the Battle of Bristoe Station, southwest of Manassas. This blunted Lee's momentum and effectively ended the Confederate advance.

Lee began to pull back on October 18, and as the rebels moved south, Kilpatrick pursued Stuart closely, with Custer's brigade in the advance. Kilpatrick was “furious as a wild boar” by one report, looking for payback for the battle at Brandy Station the week before.
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On the nineteenth Stuart's men made a stand on the south bank of Broad Run, at the village of Buckland Mills. Custer attacked the rebels head-on, but Stuart's artillery thwarted the assault. After a few more probes, Custer turned the rebel left flank and forced Stuart from his position, driving him a mile down the road. Custer's men paused in Buckland to rest while Davies's 1st Brigade continued the chase. Stuart's cavalry withdrew into the hilly country heading toward Warrenton, ten miles away.

Custer and his staff retired to a manor house called Cerro Gordo, located on a prominence on the north bank of Broad Run, overlooking Buckland Mills. The house belonged to Charles Hunton, a leading Virginia politician, and earlier that day had served as Jeb Stuart's headquarters. “At the time of our arrival at that point,” Custer wrote, Stuart “was seated at the dinner-table, eating; but, owing to my successful advance, he was compelled to leave his dinner untouched—a circumstance not regretted by that portion of my command into whose hands it fell.” The last of Stuart's commanders to leave was George's West Point friend P. M. B. Young. Stuart had advised Young not to tarry, and after a shell exploded nearby and an aide had called out, “They are coming, sir, we must hurry or be cut off from the bridge,” Young and his men evacuated. Shortly after, Custer rode up. He politely asked Hunton's two daughters, who were minding the house, if he could have his dinner there. They said that it was already on the table, that General Young had just left it.

“Very well, ladies,” Custer said, “Young and I are friends.” Custer and his men sat down to eat and he regaled the sisters with tales of his and Young's exploits at West Point. Kilpatrick soon joined the group, visibly pleased with the turn of events. He announced that since Stuart had boasted of driving him from Culpeper, he was going to drive Stuart right back to Warrenton.

The congratulatory repast was interrupted by the sound of artillery fire. It came from a column of approaching cavalry that Kilpatrick assumed was Merritt's brigade. However, a short time later, a mile-long line of Confederate infantry emerged from the distant woods to the south across Broad Run, heading in their direction.

In his enthusiasm, Kilpatrick had ridden hard into a trap. As the Federal cavalry pursued Jeb Stuart and Hampton's division, Fitzhugh Lee, commanding a cavalry division reinforced with infantry, retired toward Auburn on a parallel track, the movement concealed by the rolling, wooded terrain. After the tail end of Davies's brigade disappeared down the Warrenton road chasing Stuart, Fitz Lee fired his artillery as a prearranged signal to commence the attack. Stuart turned his men and charged back on the pursuing Union cavalry, while Fitz Lee moved on the Federal rear to close the trap. The plan worked perfectly, Lee observed, because Kilpatrick “was easily misled.”
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“I pressed upon them suddenly and vigorously in front,” Stuart said, “with Gordon in the center and Young and Rosser on his flanks.” Union troops strung out on the road at first resisted, but “the charge was made with such impetuosity . . . that the enemy broke and the rout was soon complete.”
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The confident Federal troops had been caught off guard by the unexpected reversal in fortune. Unable to rally and mount a coherent defense, they scattered north up the road toward Broad Run.

The situation was also heating up back near Buckland Mills. Custer had rushed the dismounted 6th Michigan under Major Kidd across the bridge toward the advancing rebels, along with Pennington's battery of
artillery. Custer first thought the rebels were fielding a similar force of dismounted cavalry, but soon learned he was facing a determined infantry assault. “Pennington's battery, aided by the Sixth Michigan cavalry, poured a destructive fire upon the enemy as he advanced,” Custer wrote, “but failed to force him back.” The rebel infantry advanced to within twenty yards of his guns before Pennington limbered up and retreated back across Broad Run, followed by the 6th Michigan in good order.

The bridge soon became too hotly contested for the rest of the retreating Federals to cross. However, Custer's quick action had delayed Lee's advance just enough to prevent the trap from fully closing. Davies's retreating troopers, covered by Custer's well-placed artillery, were able to cross upstream from Buckland, and rallied miles away at Haymarket. Custer withdrew five miles east to Gainesville. As he evacuated his headquarters at Cerro Gordo, he paused at the gate and said to the Hunton sisters, “Ladies, give Young my compliments.” Since he had taken Young's dinner, he said Young could have his breakfast.
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