This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
[35] “Just the man, sir,” he replied. Then he turned to Captain L. G. Estes, assistant adjutant general on his staff. In a few moments Captain Estes brought up a squadron of cavalry, two excellent troops. He moved off toward the Flint, first at a quick walk; then, as he neared the enemy's outposts, at a trot; and the Confederate commander, hearing the firing and seeing his outposts driven in, had no time to make barricades. He saddled up and retired as rapidly as he could. I put my infantry quickly upon the road, and with my staff took the lead, following the skirmishers ahead of me. I desired to get a view of the ground before darkness set in. There was a swift race for the river. Our infantry was so excited that they almost kept up with the cavalry. The Confederates made a brief halt at the bridge on the opposite side, firing upon us from the right and left, while some two or three men set the bridge on fire. Captain Estes's command was armed with Spencer repeating rifles. His troops deployed along the river bank and began their increasing fire, while other troopers dismounted and rushed for the burning bridge. These succeeded in extinguishing the flames, drove back the defenders, and speedily crossed over to the other side. It did not take long for our infantry, under the new excitement, to reach the river and deploy their own skirmishers in support of the cavalry. Among the first I reached the bridge, delayed a few minutes to reconnoiter, and then crossed over, following up the troops. A few staff officers were with me, including Lieutenant Colonel Stinson, who had been so severely wounded at Pickett's Mill, and who had just returned from Cleveland, Tenn., convalescent, but not
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.