The Cavalry was there.
Many writers have been trying to find out where the cavalry was at Gettysburg, and if they had been with this writer, who was trying his level best to obliterate Meade's army, they would have known at least where the 6th Regiment of Virginia Cavalry was. Thank God I have no inclination to criticise any officer, corps, division, brigade, regiment, or company in the whole service, for they deserve and will wear crowns of immortelles. My object, as stated, has been to show to the world in a straightforward and truthful manner the part performed by the 170 men who comprised the Clarke Cavalry, Company D, Sixth Regiment. These were all young men, the flower of Clarke, who kept themselves mounted, clothed, and armed throughout the war. Fifty-two of them only are left, one of whom is sixty-seven years old, and of the remaining fifty-one very few have yet reached or passed sixty. Every one of these survivors were at different times prisoners, and nearly every one of them wears a scar. [151] One hundred and eighteen ‘sleep their last sleep; they have fought their last battle, and no sound can awake them to glory again.’ A company that had 170 men, fought fifty-seven pitched battles, had eighty-three men killed, thirty-five to die after the war, and fifty-two, by no fault of theirs, left wondering how it was possible that they escaped, surely deserve the credit of having tried to do their duty. On the fourth Thursday in May, 1861, the ordinance of secession was ratified by the people of Virginia by 130,000 majority. It did not wait for that, but had been in the field for more than a month previous to said action. For four long years 500,000 of us, all told, on land and sea, fought more than three millions of soldiers, and absolutely wore ourselves out whipping them. We fought the good fight; we kept the faith—are still keeping it—and when the problems, anxieties, and disappointments that absorbed our energies shall concern us no more, and when we, too, shall have passed away, and those for whom we fought, bled, and died shall have succeeded us in the paths of life and duty, may it, oh may it, be said of us: Their deeds shine brighter than the stars,For daylight hides them never;
Brave men are stars that never set,
They shine in Heaven forever.
