cavalrymen have found his infantry. High Bridge must wait.
The Fourth Massachusetts has been in the saddle since four A.M. It is now almost noon. The men are exhausted, as are their horses. The soldiers gallop their weary animals back across the floodplain, over the Sandy River and on up to the Chatham plateau. Men and horses are breathless from the race and the midday heat, the riders’ blue uniforms and gloved hands bathed in sweat. Their stomachs rumble from lack of food, and their lips are chapped from thirst. They expect only a minor battle, because the main Confederate force is still miles away. But that expectation turns out to be brutally wrong.
Some 1,200 Confederate horsemen wait to attack Washburn’s cavalry and infantry, which together number just slightly more than 800. Rebel horses and riders hold in a long line, awaiting the inevitable order to charge forth and crush the tiny Union force.
Colonel Washburn remains cool, surveying what could be a hopeless situation. Infantry is no match against the speed and agility of cavalry. His infantry lie on their bellies and peer across at Confederate cavalry. They have had no time to dig trenches or build fortifications, so hugging the ground is their only defense. Washburn is cut off from the rest of Grant’s army, with no hope of rescue. How can 79 Union riders possibly hold off 1,200 Confederate horsemen?
Washburn decides that his only hope is to be bold—a quality this Harvard man possesses in abundance.
After conferring with General Read, Washburn orders his cavalry to assemble. They are now on the brow of the hill, just out of rifle range, in columns of four. Washburn addresses the ranks. He barks out his plan, then reminds the infantry to get their butts up off the ground and follow right behind the Union riders to punch a hole through the rebel lines.
On Washburn’s command, the Fourth Massachusetts trot their mounts forward. While the Confederates purchased their own horses or brought them from home, the Union horses are government-issue. Each trooper has ridden mile upon mile with the same horse, in the same saddle. As they arrive at this fateful moment, animal and rider alike know each other’s moods and movements—the nudge of a knee, the gathering of the haunch muscles, the forward lean to intimate danger or the need for speed—so that they work as one.
Passing the infantry’s far right flank, Washburn’s cavalry wheels left. The colonel’s accent is Brahmin and his tone is fearless. The precision of his cavalry is something that Washburn takes for granted, for they have practiced time and again on the parade ground. And the show of force stuns the enemy. The Confederates see what is coming, even if they don’t believe it.
Counting Read and Washburn, there are now 80 Union horsemen. Outnumbered by more than fifteen to one, they shut out all thoughts of this being the last battle of their young lives. They ride hard. Their fate comes down to one simple word: “Charge!”
Washburn screams the command. Spurs dig into horses. Sabers clank as they are withdrawn from their sheaths. Some men fire their Spencer carbines as they gallop within rifle range, clutching the gun in their right hand and the reins in their left. Others wield pistols. Still others prefer the killing blade of a cavalry sword. The audacity of their charge and succeed-at-all-costs desperation ignites panic in the rebel army. The battlefield splits in two as Washburn’s men punch through the first wave of the rebel line. The Union charge at Chatham, for a brief instant, is a triumph.
But, stunningly, after the cavalry charges, Washburn’s infantry does not move. Not a muscle. Even as the Confederate defenses crumble, and as Washburn organizes his men for the secondary attack that will smash an escape route through the rebel lines, the foot soldiers are still on their bellies, sealing their own doom.
General Rosser senses exactly what’s happening. He doesn’t waste a second. The Texan yells for his Confederate cavalry to prepare for a counterattack.
The Confederate general James Dearing, just twenty-four years old, leads the way. Both sides race toward each other at top speed before pulling back on the reins in the center of the plain. The fight becomes a brutal test of courage and horsemanship. Men and horses wheel about the battlefield, fighting hand to hand, saddle to saddle. Each man wages his own individual battle with a ferocity only a lifeand-death situation can bring. Bullets pierce eyes. Screams and curses fill the air. The grassy plain runs blood-red.
A rifle is too unwieldy in such tight quarters, so men use the butt end rather than the barrel. Pistols and sabers are even more lethal. “I have been many a day in hot fights,” the unflappable Rosser will marvel later, “but I never saw anything approaching that at High Bridge.”
Rosser’s gaze drifts over to the amazing sight of his enemy. Washburn, in the thick of the action, is a frenzied dervish, slaying everything in his path. Men fall and die all around as Washburn rides tall in the saddle, his saber slashing at any man who steps forward to challenge him.
Suddenly, the young Confederate general Dearing shoots the Union general Theodore Read, at point-blank pistol range. Read falls from his saddle to the ground. Seeing this, Colonel Washburn takes his revenge. He engages Dearing in an intense saber duel, brought to a sudden end when a Union soldier fires two bullets into Dearing’s chest. His sword falls to the ground, as does he.
Washburn is still sitting tall in the saddle—but not for long. As he turns his head, he is shot through the mouth at point-blank range. The bullet lodges in his lungs. His jaw hangs slack as blood pours from the hole in his face, down onto his sweaty, dusty blue uniform.
The force of the gunshot does not kill Washburn, nor even render him unconscious. It is, however, strong enough to knock him out of the saddle for the first time all day. As the colonel falls, a Confederate flails at his toppling body with a thirty-four-inch saber, burying the blade deep in Washburn’s skull. Incredibly, one day later, as a burial detail cleans the battlefield, Washburn will be found alive.
There are many, many casualties.
The Confederates lose 100 men.
The Union loses everyone.
Every single one of the 847 Union soldiers sent to burn High Bridge is either captured or killed. Those who try to fight their way out are slaughtered, one by one. The failure of the Union infantry to obey Washburn’s orders to attack sealed their fate.
Rosser leads his weary men back toward Rice’s Station, content in the knowledge that he has single- handedly saved the Confederacy.
Lee will now have his escape. Or at least it appears that way.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As the battle for High Bridge commences, Union general George Meade’s infantry finally finds the tail end of the Confederate column about ten miles away from the High Bridge fight. A hard rain falls. In the first of what will be many firefights on this day, small bands of Union soldiers begin shooting at the Confederate rear guard. The movement is like a ballet, with skirmishers pushing forward through the trees and craggy ground to engage the rebels. The instant they run out of ammunition, these skirmishers pull back and another group races forward to take their place. And all the while, other infantrymen capture artillery pieces, burn wagons, and force the rebels to turn and fight—and sometimes even dig in, separating them further from Lee’s main force.
Confederate general John Gordon’s force falls behind first. The ferocious Georgian understands that he is being cut off. In fact, Lee’s entire Confederate army is being separated. No longer is it a single force; it has been broken into four separate corps. Under normal conditions, the cavalry would plug these gaps or, at the very least, chase away the Union skirmishers, but the cavalry have their hands full at High Bridge.
Meanwhile, in Rice’s Station, Lee rises from his nap and assesses the situation. Hearing the ferocity of the firing from High Bridge, he assumes that the Union force is much bigger than the 800 men who galloped past him a few hours ago. If Lee had any cavalry at his disposal, they would act as his eyes and ears, scouting ahead and returning with the truth. But he doesn’t. Lee can only guess at what’s happening—and he guesses wrong.
