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"MAJOR-GENERAL WARREN, "Commanding Fifth Army Corps. "I am holding in front of Dinwiddie Court House, on the road leading to Five Forks, for three-quarters of a mile with General Custer's division. The enemy are in his immediate front, lying so as to cover the road just this side of A. Adams's house, which leads across Chamberlain's bed, or run. I will hold on here.
Opposed to Custer's five regiments and one battery, Fitzhugh Lee had twelve regiments of cavalry, three brigades under Lomax, Owen and Chambliss and as good a battery Breathed's as was in the confederate service.
It was not until after the garrison was settled here that I saw much of these Indian tribes, whom Custer's victory on the Washita, and diplomatic handling of affairs afterwards, had brought into villages under the guns of our cantonment. I knew that Satanta and Lone Wolf, chief men of the Kiowas, were held as hostages, but I had not been near them.
Stretched along the north slope of the ridge, from Keogh to Custer Hill, was Smith's command, and at the culminating point of the ridge, or Custer Hill, but on the opposite ridge from where the others were placed, were Tom Custer and Yates, and with them Custer himself. Yates' and Custer's men evidently faced northwest.
The troops did not seem to be disposed in battle order, but on the other side of the bivouac was a line of battle a heavy rear-guard confronting, presumably, General Meade. I decided to attack at once, and formations were ordered at a trot for a charge by Custer's and Devin's divisions down the slope leading to the camps.
They had been interested listeners to, if not actual witnesses of the cavalry fight. The contest between the dismounted men of Rosser's and Custer's commands had been almost, if not quite, in their front and occasional shots had come their way.
Merritt left Custer at Malon's crossing of Rowanty Creek to care for the trains containing our subsistence and the reserve ammunition, these being stuck in the mire at, intervals all the way back to the Jerusalem plank-road; and to make any headway at all with the trains, Custer's men often had to unload the wagons and lift them out of the boggy places.
It was the following morning that Victoria and Barney Custer, with Lieutenant Butzow and Custer's partner, stood contemplating the smoldering wreckage. "And to think," said Barney, "that yesterday this muss was the largest corn mill west of anywhere. I guess we can both take vacations now, Bert."
Torbert had the lead with Merritt's and Devin's brigades, and as he pressed back the pickets he came upon the enemy posted behind a line of barricades in dense timber about three miles from Trevillian. Meanwhile Custer's brigade had been sent from where we bivouacked, by a wood road found on our left, to destroy Trevillian Station.
I met Torbert at Custer's headquarters, and found that the two had already been talking over a scheme to capture Cold Harbor, and when their plan was laid before me it appeared so plainly feasible that I fully endorsed it, at once giving directions for its immediate execution, and ordering Gregg to come forward to Torbert's support with such troops as he could spare from the duty with which he had been charged.
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