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When the Brigade advanced the squadron's place was in extreme front, when it retreated in extreme rear.
It formed General R. E. Lee's extreme advance guard into Chambersburg, Pa., in 1863.
It was General John McCausland's extreme rear guard all night and all day for days together, from Covington to Buchanan in June, 1864, when General Hunter advanced on Lynchburg, Va.
When Chambersburg, Pa. was burnt in 1864, this squadron acted as General McCausland's extreme rear guard when McCausland left the burning city.
From Five Forks, Va., near Petersburg, it was again often in the rear of Beale's Brigade (to which it had been transferred) in Lee's retreat to Appomattox.
On the morning of the surrender, 9th April, 1865, this squadron was with its regiment, the 14th Virginia Cavalry, in the last charge made by that regiment under command of Captain E. E. Bouldin.
On very many other occasions, these two companies were assigned the posts of danger and hardship.
They acted nearly always together.
So that in most, if not all instances, the Churchville Cavalry was engaged along with the Charlotte Cavalry in battles and skirmishes enumerated below, and its casualties were as many as those of the Charlotte Cavalry, though this memorial does not name any of them.
A roll of that Company was made out by Captain James A. Wilson, of Churchville, Augusta County, Va. A roll of the members of the Charlotte Cavalry was published in Vol.
XXVIII of the Southern Historical Society Papers, and it was also entered in the records of County Court of Charlotte County, Virginia.
This memorial was prepared by Lieutenant Samuel M. Gaines, now of Washington, D. C., from the records in that city and from his own notes and recollections, and was carefully reviewed by myself.
It was sent to many of the surviving members of the Charlotte Cavalry, and corrections made where there were errors.
So I hope, that it is correct in every particular, and will serve to give posterity an account of the part this Company and the Churchville Cavalry, bore in the great War, 1861-5.
The following is a chronological list of the engagements, large and small (excepting trivial encounters on picket and scout duty) in which this Company, as a whole or in part, participated during the War, with the casualties remembered.
This text is part of:
Richmond, VA. 1906.
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