Rulon — February through May 10, 1863
Despite sorry weather, in February General Fitz Lee’s Brigade moved from their winter foraging in King William and Caroline counties back to Culpeper Court House to relieve Wade Hampton’s Brigade on picket duty. Across the upper Rappahannock, the Federal troops sheltered for the winter, but Rulon’s regiment picked away at the Federal videttes and lines of communication, in company with the other three regiments of the command.
The successful cavalry raids brought a response once the weather warmed a trifle. Rulon found himself tagged for courier duty during one of the encounters, and wrote to Mary of the recklessness of the task, dashing about the battleground taking messages from one commander to another. He embellished the patriotic elements of the duty while toning down the danger.
For the rest of the month of April, Rulon was occupied with picket duty and riding in support when a picket post at Rixeyville was reported under attack.
On the way back the next day, Ren said, “I reckon false reports will wear a body out quicker than a nice fight.”
“It surely gets the blood up to no good purpose,” Rulon replied. “My horse is about beat to death.”
At the end of the month, though, Hooker’s army crossed the Rappahannock. The 1st Virginia Cavalry struck the Federal advance on the Germanna Ford road, but Rulon’s company was ordered to guard another road, and while there, captured enough prisoners to send good information to General Robert Lee about the Federal commands opposing them. The regiment rode all night through the Wilderness on winding roads, then was put into a fight the next day, without rest.
Moving through the woods, the column came to a standstill when they came in contact with the enemy. After a courier had come from General Stuart several times, bidding Colonel Drake to hurry on to Chancellorsville, and the colonel had sent him back with the ill tidings that they could not fulfill the order, Colonel Drake sent Rulon with the courier to emphasize the futility of the dispatch.
Soon General Stuart came up with a brigade of infantry, and although the soldiers were deployed in front of the regiment, the enemy was firmly entrenched in an old railroad cut and could not be dislodged.
General Jackson’s corps later rolled up the Federal flank, and the Yankees retreated toward Chancellorsville.
Although the enemy was on the run, matters turned deadly serious when General Jackson rode out in front of his lines on a reconnaissance and was mortally wounded by his own men on his return.
Caught out of position during the battle, Rulon’s company joined General Rooney Lee’s Brigade in chasing the Federal cavalry south led by General Stoneman toward the James River. The pursuit lasted over eight days and nights, and although no major battles ensued, they skirmished with the Yankees nearly every day.
When General Stoneman’s cavalry eluded capture, the 1st Regiment camped at Orange Court House.
Rulon threw himself onto the ground after he saw to his horse. “I declare I am dead of hunger,” he said to Ren.
“Did you find any more crackers in your saddlebags?”
Rulon snorted. “I’m not a magician. I ate the last one two days ago.”
Ren expressed his disappointment in sharp words.
“I can hear your stomach growl from over here,” Rulon retorted, and tore up a handful of grass. He looked at the bright blades. “Do you reckon it’s edible for humans?”
“Cats eat it. And goats. Horses graze on it.” He sat beside Rulon and picked a blade of grass. “Why not us?” he said, and stuck the grass into his mouth.
~~~
Ben — May 13, 1863
Word spread through the Confederate Army like wildfire that General Jackson had died. Some said losing his arm had disheartened him. Some said being shot by his own troops had put him in a mortal state of grief. After a time it was understood that the great general had died from pneumonia. That did not erase the sense of gloom that overshadowed his command.
My darling Ella Ruth,
I hope this finds you well and happy as can be expected, given the circumstances.
You cannot imagine the pain we endure in the Brigade. I do not know your feelins toward the General, but his death has thrown us into despair.
The heart within me seemed to break when the news came that the dread day had arriv’d. We hoped and prayed that God would spare Gen’l Jackson to lead us agin. I suppose God wanted him more than we did, but oh! The grief cuts us sore and deep.
The Yankees have so many men they seem to come from a deep well. We are drafting schoolboys and greybeards. Some come with no weapons, no shoes. I suppose they dragged them off a hill hideout in Tennessee. North Carolina sent good fighters early on, but the recroots now are reluctant to stand. Pray for the Cause, sweet girl. Pray with fervent heart that we will overcome the foe, and soon. We cannot go on like this forever.
Ben added a few lines about his plans for expanding crop production on the farm after the war, then continued.
I reckon you have had every good thing in your life. My hope is that as you consider becoming my little farm wife you will hav no regrets. Be assured that I adore you, but you will need to learn many tasks that will dirty your hands. My ma has felt great satisfaction in doing hard work for her family. You will feel the same joy as you learn the work.
He ended the letter expressing his fervent love, and then, signed it simply,
Ben
~~~
Mary — May 15, 1863
Dear Husband,
My, how my arms do ache! We made soft soap today from the winter’s ashs. Mama sent India to the store in my place so I could pitch into the labor. I hope Papa did not take offence at having a jun’r worker instead of his right-hand Mary.
The fire roared, the kett’l bubbled and splash’d, and Roddy lern’d how to hold up his dress to toddle toward the center of the excitment. I could not let harm come to yor son, so I fashn’d a pen of chairs and blankets in the hedge of the garden. He is a smart creature for merely 15-months-old, and found a way to dig out between the bushes. I was forev’r putting him back in place and piling dirt up to keep him contain’d. Mama became so alarmed that she sent Ida to the store and India returned to tend the boy.
This made more work for Sylvia and me, but at the end of the day, we had poured out a quantity of soap for bars. I enclose one, wich I hope did not leek on the paper, as I wrapped it in the last oilcloth I could find.
I must hide my pleasure to see Papa treating with his grandson. With only girls in his projeny, havin a boy about the place is a novelty. I hast’n to add it is a joy to him. He looks for trinkets in the store to bring home to Roddy. I am ever cautining Papa about small items, for the boy still puts everything to a taste-test before he plays with it. I do not want him to choke, as a child did in New Market the past week. The moth’r is inconsoalable. She blames the Yankees, passin down the Valley again, for scaring the baby into swallowing his sugartit. I keep Roddy out of their way when they come thru town.
Yor Mother had a siege of sickness amongst your kin during the winter. All have recover’d and pray for an end to this conflict. Rulon, my prayers are constant on yor behalf. Keep safe, dear Life, and return to me whole and strong.
I take Roddy’s hand in my own to make his mark
X
All our love,
Mary
~~~
Rod — May 17, 1863
My dear Julie,
I am well. The cough that playged me during the cold spell has gone away. When I lost my good horse I had a rough time finding a remount, but finally acquired a sturdy bay mare that is coming along well.
When you rote me Carl had gone into the army I was not much surprised. I have kept my eyes open for him. He was in a regular horse company, but Jeb Stuart gave John Mosby permission to form up a company of partisans under the Act thet Congress passed. As soon as he could, Carl joined Mosby’s Men.
How I wish I could see you and comfort you as you continue this year of mourning. If it will give you peace, Peter’s captain told me of his valor upon the field of combat. He fought with bravery and honor. Cap’n Thomas said our boy passed quickly and painlessly in a charge against the foe at Portici Plantation. I hope that knowledge will suffice to give you pride in our son and comfort at his loss.
We have been much exercised in determining the position of the enemy as their army moves. It is fortunate that we have good forage for the horses now. I’m sure yor prayers have been effective, little Wife. Thank you for keeping our sons and me and my men in them.
Give the girls a kiss for me and embrace my sons at home. Receive a kiss upon yor brow and an especial sincere hug from yor husband,
Roderick Owen
Cap’n, Owen Dragoons
~~~
Rulon — June 5 through 9, 1863
The ranks of the cavalry had swelled considerably with new recruits and the return of a couple of brigades, and Jeb Stuart called for a general review of the entire command for June 5.
Such a hullabaloo, Rulon thought as the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment passed in rigid order before a group of ladies and invited guests. The invitees included 10,000 Texans of Hood’s Division, who were neither quiet nor politic in their assessments of the Virginians. Things might get rowdy tonight.
The regiment avoided much of the shenanigans planned for them by Hood’s veteran scrappers by marching across the ford on Hazel River and riding until two the next morning to Jeffersonton. Rulon dismounted as though his legs were made of apple jelly after the extended ride. He planted the side of his head against the saddle blanket and breathed deeply, trying to get enough air flowing to clear the dust from his lungs.
“Imagine walking that far,” Ren Lovell said, his crooked smile a pale imitation of the one he used to turn on Rulon. “I’ll go see if the Captain has orders.”
Rulon hadn’t shifted from leaning against his horse when Ren returned.
“Don’t unsaddle. We’re going on picket as soon as we get some grub into our bellies.”
“I’d rather sleep,” Rulon muttered.
“Do it quick, then. We’re riding at sunrise over to Waterloo Bridge.”
Rulon fished a portion of a hard tack cracker out of his saddlebag, just in case he had a yen to put something the army called food into his mouth, and led the horse to a lane. He tethered it to a tree and lay down nearby.
Owen Leoyd shook him awake before the sky had lightened. “Time to go, Owen,” he said, the old joke worn thin by now.
Rulon stirred, opened his eyes, and got to his feet. The inside of his mouth made him think he’d ingested sand during the night. He took a swig of water from his canteen, swished it around, and spit. He found the cracker and put it into his cheek to soften until he could chew it. A roast chicken would taste better about now. He wondered if there were any chickens in the county. He shrugged off the thought. He didn’t have any money to buy one if they were to be had.
When he was ready to mount up, Ren came by and said, “General Lee’s stove up with rheumatism. Colonel Munford is taking the brigade until he comes back.”
Rulon groaned. Every commander had a distinct leadership style. He was too tired to deal with Munford, so he hoped Old Fitz got well in a hurry.
Rulon drew a short straw and paired with Garth Von at a picket post. The surly fellow proceeded to pare his fingernails with his knife, and Rulon determined not to blink while he was in the company of Von.
Shortly after noon, Rulon’s eyes sprang open when he heard carbine fire from a position closer to the bridge. Surprised he was still alive, he drew his weapon and looked around. Von had gigged his horse out of the trees toward the fight, and Rulon followed, gnashing his teeth at the thought that he had slumbered.
The other men from “I” Company joined the skirmish with a small detachment of Yankee cavalrymen. When the enemy had been driven off, Ren assessed the squadron and discovered that Private Whitmore had been injured.
Rulon promptly volunteered to take the man back to the surgeon at Rixeyville, and Ren let him go.
“Coward,” Ren whispered as he bent near.
Rulon shook his head and mouthed, “Von.”
Ren raised an eyebrow, but nodded and waved Rulon and Whitmore off in the direction of the regiment’s headquarters.
A few days later, a buzz went around the brigade. The Yankee cavalry had crossed the Rappahannock and attacked Stuart’s main encampment near Brandy Station. “Boots and Saddles” blared from multiple bugles, and men ran around the camp as though demons chased them. Although the distance to the battle wasn’t that far, moving the men and horses of the Brigade effectively was a daunting task for a newly designated commander.
Colonel Drake wanted the 1st to leave first, but Munford had other ideas, and with all the hubbub, the brigade didn’t arrive on the field until about four o’clock.
The 1st was ordered forward, and Rulon drew his sabre and galloped forward at the charge, yelling at the top of his voice. He heard Ren scream, “Give ‘em the sabre, boys!” Desperate to drive back the Yankees, the men of the 1st Virginia called on all the boldness and dash they possessed.
A melee of men swirled around Rulon as the charge disintegrated into small fights in isolated pockets. He found himself in the midst of fierce action with his weapon, clashing in individual contest with one Yankee after another. One almost slashed his arm with a thrust but he parried at the last moment and the man went off his horse instead. Rulon incapacitated the man with a quick thrust of his own, not pausing to wonder how he did this so callously, as he had done at the beginning of the war. It was wound, or be wounded, kill or be killed, and the clash of sabres around him, the smoke and dust clogging the air, the screams of downed horses, the rattle of balls, and the roar of artillery reminded him that combat of this sort was intensely personal.
When he had a second to catch his breath, Rulon wondered how the brigades encamped around Stuart’s headquarters had been caught with their pants down. Then he had no more time for thought, as another foeman rode toward him.
Then the Yankees began to retreat, their bugles calling them back from the field. Rulon engaged one last holdout, then the man turned and galloped off.
Rulon pulled his horse around in response to his own regiment’s bugles, his heart still racing with the effects of the chaos and excitement, and saw Garth Von dismount and slit the throat of a downed Yankee officer. Von looked about, lifted the man’s head by his hair, and with his bloody blade, carved a circle around the top of the Yankee’s head, then sliced the scalp from the man’s cranium.
Rulon fought back the urge to vomit, but Von wasn’t finished.
He stuffed the ghastly prize into his saddlebag, then slit the officer’s trousers up the front. He let out a keening yell of triumph, then mutilated the man’s crotch. Lifting the remains, he ran to his horse and mounted.
Rulon lost his battle against nausea. Retching, he kicked his horse away from the scene, back toward the regiment, putting a fair amount of distance between himself and the man he had thought of as merely crazy. Ren’s assessment had been correct. Von was evil.
~~~
Rulon — late June through early July, 1863
After the sickening events at Brandy Station, Rulon kept as far as he could from Garth Von as the regiment rested in camp at Rixeyville. He invited Owen Leoyd to join him for an entertainment.
“Come on, Leoyd. Company ‘B’ is putting on a race.”
“They ought not to wear out the horses,” Leoyd said, his face set in solemn lines.
“Oh, these critters have plenty of go in them.”
“Critters? Where did they get racing hounds?”
“Not hounds. Come on. You’ll see.”
Rulon led the way to where the men of Company “B” had gathered in a flat area. A small patch of tent canvas lay on the ground, with the men shouting encouragement.
“What are they yelling about?” Leoyd asked.
Rulon dragged him into the circle. Several tiny dark objects scurried across the canvas, guided by splinters of wood held by the men closest to the fray.
“Fleas? They’re racing fleas?” Leoyd scoffed at the sight, and would have turned away but for Rulon’s hand on his sleeve.
“Don’t matter what they’re doin’. At least we’re away from Von.”
At that, Leoyd sat right down on the ground and observed.
Within days, the army was on the move, sending out pickets to warn of the approach of the enemy. They found them near Aldie, and the 1st held the road, fighting dismounted from behind stone walls.
After the skirmish, the 1st was on picket at Mountsville, but had to battle to keep the position. This continued until General Fitz Lee took command of his brigade again.
“We’re heading east,” Ren told the squadron. “General Bobbie Lee took the infantry boys over the river into Maryland. We’re to do damage behind the lines.”
The cavalry brigades destroyed canal boats, captured wagons and supplies, burned bridges and tore up railroad tracks as they advanced into Maryland and Pennsylvania. They skirmished in Westminster, and fought their way out of an encounter with overpowering numbers at Hanover.
“Stuart’s lost, ain’t he.” Rulon observed to Ren when they reached Dover, Pennsylvania at daylight after riding through the night. “I don’t see any sign of Early’s army.”
“Maybe so, but I see plentiful forage hereabouts.”
“I hope Stuart lets us find provisions,” Rulon said. “My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”
“They don’t like us here.”
“We don’t like them in Virginia, either. It’s time the Yankees learned that turn-about is fair.”
After filling their bellies, they were on the march again by night.
“Jeb heard that Dick Ewell’s in Carlisle,” Ren said.
Rulon only groaned in reply. He’d managed to keep himself on his horse, but several men had gone to sleep and fallen from theirs.
Stuart sent Fitz Lee’s brigade to lead the advance on the town, but it was full of Pennsylvania militiamen who refused to surrender.
Garth Von muttered, “Burn the Yankees out,” and after a second attempt to convince the militia to surrender, Lee proceeded to bombard the town with his horse artillery.
A courier came with orders for the 1st to burn the Carlisle Barracks, then join the rest of the cavalry on the way to Gettysburg.
“Gettysburg?” Owen Leoyd asked. “What’s going on there?”
“Jeb found Bobbie Lee,” Ren replied. “Bobbie Lee found Meade. I reckon it’s going to be a big fight.”
~~~
Rulon — July 3, 1863
Rulon crouched in a farmer’s field behind a fence, trying not to yawn. It was a good thing General Stuart had ordered the 1st Virginia to get into this fight dismounted. He didn’t think his horse could take another step, much less gallop into a fray. He squelched another yawn behind his hand. His brigade hadn’t arrived until the wee hours this morning after riding long miles from Carlisle, and here it was after noon. He’d not slept since arriving. Who could, with the Yankees flinging shell and shot at the Confederate cavalry for the last hour? They had stopped the ruckus only a few minutes ago. The air lay flat and calm around him, without a human sound to interrupt the flow of nature.
Ren coughed at his side. “Get ready,” he said.
“I am ready,” Rulon replied, a bit irritated by the wait. “Were those boys using Spencer rifles?”
“Yes, and the next brigade probably has them, too.” Ren dug in his cartridge box. “Damn Yankee repeaters.”
Then the bugle sounded, and Rulon was up and over the fence, yelling as he fired, reloading on the run, trying to beat back the Federal skirmishers in his path so the cavalry could take yonder intersection and sweep around the Yankee flank to their rear.
A barrage of cannon fire began and Rulon tripped and fell flat. The sound was wrong. It came from behind and to the left, and it was distant. It shook the earth beneath his belly, however, rolling thunder replacing the calm of moments before.
Rulon got to his feet and continued across the field, the 1st driving the Yankees down and across another fence line. But now, he heard screams of “Come on, you Wolverines!” The Yankees pushed back. Hampton’s brigade came up from behind on horseback, and the 1st was signaled to withdraw and let the mounted troops take over the fight.
What a furious affair! Men fought with carbines, pistols, sabres, all the while screaming invective at each other. As he backed out of the battle, Rulon saw horses collide along the fence with a crash so hurtful that he imagined bones snapped. One horse went end over end and the rider screamed in agony as he was pinned by half a ton of horseflesh.
Now the Yankees were on three sides of them, and Hampton bled from a sabre cut. Frantic bugle calls summoned the men to withdraw, and so they did. No one came after them. The Yankees must have had enough, too.
~~~
Ella Ruth — November 16, 1863
Christmas was coming in about a month, despite the war dragging on and on. Ella Ruth sat down after a long stint helping her Uncle Joseph with a wounded soldier, arching her aching back in an attempt to work the kinks out. If she was going to send a gift to Ben, it would have to be done soon or he would never receive it in time.
She knew he had survived that awful fight in Pennsylvania last summer. Thank the Good Lord he wasn’t in General Pickett’s division. Since July she had received a few letters from Ben, and the last note said he was somewhere in Orange County, below the Rapidan.
“Miss Allen,” Uncle Joseph called to her. “I need your assistance.”
With a sigh, Ella Ruth went back to work in the surgery room. What could she send to Ben?
Her answer came several days later as she read a letter to a young man whose bandages on a head wound made it impossible for him to see. His wife talked about a likeness she had sent to the soldier, and after she read that part, she glanced up to see him fumbling in his pocket to be sure he had the cherished item.
“Ain’t she the most comely woman you ever saw?” he asked, moving the likeness where Ella Ruth could view it. She hoped he could not see her widened eyes at the sight of a very homely creature, but she made polite sounds and went back to reading.
Something about the man’s devotion to his wife stirred Ella Ruth’s heart. No matter what the girl’s appearance, the remembrance she had sent was important to him.
Would Ben take such pride in my portrait? she wondered. A soft emotion swelling in her breast told her that he would. That was settled, then. She would take her pearl earrings to the photographer’s studio to barter for a likeness of herself for Ben’s Christmas gift.