Civil War Experiences under Bayard, Gregg, Kilpatrick, Custer, Raulston, and Newberry, 1862, 1863, 1864

General D. McM. Gregg was a West Point graduate and had seen service in the army before the war. He was dignified in manner and that winter I was more or less in awe of him, whe...

From Spottsylvania, until the army reached Petersburg, some portion of the regiment was under fire every day. During this period occurred the engagements at the North Anna River...

The following September General Kilpatrick, having become commander of a division in July previous, applied to have me ordered to my regiment in his division in order that I mig...

In about ten days General Gregg's division marched towards Aldie, the object being to discover the movements of Lee's army; the idea being that our cavalry should find their cav...

A little after noon the regiment reached a position in the vicinity of Spottsylvania, where details of men were given me and I was instructed to go into the woods and establish...

There had been some very severe fighting on the part of King's division. We approached the field from Manassas Junction, arriving about nine o'clock. As we were riding through t...

On the day Fort Sumter surrendered I was seventeen years old, having been born April 14, 1844. Like other boys, I proposed enlisting, but my father refused consent; and at that...

I returned to New York, procured my uniform, and immediately reported at Auburn, where the Twenty-fourth cavalry was rendezvoused. To my surprise, I found that they were under o...

General Gregg reached the battlefield of Gettysburg about noon and reported to the commanding general, whose headquarters were not far from the cemetery, where I noticed that th...

On the 9th of June, 1863, occurred the battle of Brandy Station, in which more cavalry were engaged than in any battle of the Civil War. General Buford's division had crossed th...

A few days afterwards the regiment marched through Culpeper and reached the battlefield of Cedar Mountain late on the day on which that engagement was fought. We approached the...

General Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, having been satisfied, as a result of the cavalry engagements here described, that General Lee intended to invade Maryland,...

The following morning our burial parties were at work, when a man from a Michigan regiment came and asked me if I would help him look for some of his comrades in a wheat field;...

Within a few days General Gregg was directed to cross the Potomac at Harper's Ferry and move out to the vicinity of the road leading from Martinsburg to Winchester, which was Ge...

Shortly after the battle of Fredericksburg, Captain Henry C. Weir, the adjutant-general of the division to which General D. McM. Gregg had then been assigned, asked an orderly w...

At this time the regiment had one hundred and fifty-two men, as I recall it, present for duty; there were eleven men and no officers in my company. We were ordered to Ball's Cro...

General D. McM. Gregg, General Kilpatrick, Colonel Henry C. Weir, General Walter C. Newberry, Colonel William C. Raulston, General L. G. Estes, General E. W. Whitaker, Captain T...

Experience at North Anna and Cold Harbor; General Grant and Confederate Prisoner; Crossing the James; Assault on Works at Petersburg; Wounded; At Field Hospital; Journey to City...

Joined 24th New York Cavalry at Auburn, N. Y.; Trip to Washington; At Camp Stoneman; March to Join Army of the Potomac; Experience at Battle of the Wilderness; First Sight of Ge...

Second Battle at Bull Run; Destruction of Seymour's Squadron; Death of Compton; A Wounded Soldier's Heroism; Fitz-John Porter's Message to Kilpatrick; Longstreet's Assault on Le...