previous next

[21] charge of the First New-Jersey on the battery in the rear of the house I led in person, aided by Lieut.-Colonel Broderick. At the first onset the enemy were driven from their guns. The support coming up was met, and in a few minutes also driven back. Reenforced, it returned, and was again repulsed.

My command being now much scattered by the charges it had made, Colonel Duffie not coming up to my support, as I expected, and seeing the enemy strongly reenforced, advancing from several points, I was compelled to withdraw. This was done by the greatest part of the command forming on the Brandy Station road, while I collected the balance at the station, and forming them into a rear-guard, remained till the field was cleared. The enemy here charged upon my line twice, but were repulsed each time by my carbineers with heavy loss. Having checked the enemy's advance on my retreating column, I then took across the field to join the head of my command, when a squad of the enemy's cavalry concealed in the woods fired, wounding me through the leg. I still retained command until five o'clock P. M., when orders were given to retreat, when, becoming very much exhausted from loss of blood, I turned over the command to Colonel Taylor, of the First Pennsylvania reserve cavalry, and left the field. He reports that shortly afterward he received orders to report to General Buford, and assisted in covering the withdrawal of his command across the river.

In closing my report it affords me no small degree of pleasure to be able to say that all of my command that followed me on the field behaved nobly, standing unmoved under the enemy's artillery fire, and when ordered to charge dashing forward with a spirit and determination that swept all before them. I cannot speak too highly of the manner in which the field officers of my command acted, without exception gallantly and efficiently performing every duty assigned them; and of the line officers I can say the same. I lament to say that Lieutenant-Colonel Broderick and Major Shelmire, of the First New-Jersey cavalry, were wounded and captured, and Major W. T. McEwen, First Pennsylvania cavalry, wounded; Captain Creager, of First Maryland, killed; Captain Sawyer, of First New-Jersey, missing, and seven other officers wounded or missing, whose names are reported in the list of casualties. Two hundred and seven enlisted men are reported killed, wounded, and missing.

Major January, who was doing duty as field officer of the day, and Captain H. S. Thomas, Acting Quartermaster-General; Lieutenant W. P. Lloyd, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General; Lieutenant Gremlee and Lieutenant Parry, Acting Aid-de-camp of my staff, all rendered invaluable service by the prompt and efficient manner in which they had every order executed, and the assistance they afforded in rallying and re-forming the different portions of the command. Respectfully submitted,

Percy Wyndham, Commanding Brigade.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Brandy Station (Virginia, United States) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Broderick (2)
Percy Wyndham (1)
H. S. Thomas (1)
Dick Taylor (1)
J. H. Shelmire (1)
Henry Sawyer (1)
Parry (1)
W. T. McEwen (1)
W. P. Lloyd (1)
Gremlee (1)
A. N. Duffie (1)
Frank M. Creager (1)
Abraham Buford (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
January (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: