Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[17] left, the remainder having been dispersed. He halted them on the other side of a large clearing, made the greater portion dismount, and placed them on foot behind the shelter of a wall, whence they could fire like infantry; he planted his artillery behind this line, and, placing himself at the head of the Third Virginia, which had only one hundred horses left, he charged the Federal lines with the energy of despair. He was in hopes of capturing Averell's guns, but he was stopped by a wooden fence behind which the Fifth Cavalry lay in ambush; while they were trying to effect a passage his mounted men were taken in the rear by a charge of the Third Pennsylvania, of McIntosh's brigade, and driven back upon their line of skirmishers. But the latter presented such a bold front, and the Southern artillerists, anxious to avenge the death of Pelham, served their pieces with so much zeal and precision, that the Unionists thought they had to cope with a brigade of infantry which had come to the assistance of Stuart. At the very moment when a final effort would probably have secured him a decisive victory, Averell paused, and, to the great joy of his adversaries, who knew now his numerical superiority, contented himself with deploying a line of skirmishers to cover his retreat, and retraced his steps to Kelly's Ford, which he crossed that same evening. The Confederate losses were 11 killed, 88 wounded, and 34 prisoners; those of the Federals only amounted to 80 men in all:¹ the conflict, therefore, was not sanguinary, but we have narrated it in detail because it was the first encounter which took place in the East between two cavalry corps of considerable magnitude without any infantry support.

It is difficult to imagine what could have been the real object that Averell had in view, but we can only judge of an expedition by the means employed, the plan supposed to have been laid, and the results foreshadowed. The result of the combat at Kelly's Ford to the Federals was that it enabled them, first of all, to reconnoitre a pass of which they were to avail themselves six weeks later; and, secondly, that it inflicted a serious check upon the enemy's cavalry. But as regards the reconnoissance, the few squadrons which captured the defenders of the ford would have