The great Bluff at Culpeper.
Of his saving the commissary and quartermaster trains of the Army of Northern Virginia at
Culpeper, October 9, 1863, by a lucky inspiration (bluff the boys called it), by covering the hills with dismounted men as infantry, and one piece of artillery to the hill, which ‘to keep a shooting,’ and keeping the brigade building fires all night and his band playing music, to make the
Yankees believe there was a corps instead of the few hundred men he had for ‘duty,’ is too well told by
John Esten Cook for me but to incidentally mention.
For the third time was he wounded, and as usual in displaying conspicuous gallantry, for which he was promoted major-general of cavalry.
Sherman's forces threatening the powder mills at
Augusta,
Beauregard,
Bragg, the
Governors of
Georgia and
South Carolina appealed for reinforcements from the Army of Northern Virginia.
Major-General P. M. B. Young, with a division (?), consisting of 900 dismounted cavalrymen, under the immediate command of
Captain F. E. Eve, was all that
General Robert E. Lee could spare—and
General Young was selected, hoping his men could be mounted and he assist
General Wheeler in opposing
General Kilpatrick, whose brigade he had defeated at
Brandy Station with the sabre,
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and at the supreme moment of his supposed victory, in the most celebrated cavalry battle of the war. On their arrival in
Augusta, without rest, they rushed to
Green's Cut, to meet
Kilpatrick's raid, who was then threatening
Waynesboro, where
Wheeler met and defeated him.