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Updated: May 20, 2025
When Stuart left Gettysburg, as he says about noon, he took with him Chambliss's and Jenkins's brigades of cavalry and Griffin's battery. Hampton and FitZhugh Lee were to follow; also Breathed's and McGregor's batteries, as soon as the latter had replenished their ammunition chests.
It had been arranged between him and Fitzhugh Lee that he, with his three brigades, was to fall back without resistance before the two brigades of the Third division, until they were drawn well away from the bridge, when Lee, who was coming up from Auburn through the woods to the left, with the brigades of Lomax, Chambliss and Wickham and Breathed's battery would swing in across the pike, cut Kilpatrick off from the bridge, and then, at the first sound of Lee's guns, Kilpatrick was to be attacked simultaneously by Stuart in front and by Lee in rear, and thoroughly whipped.
Breathed replied by hurling canister in their faces. He sat his horse, unflinching. Never had I seen a more superb soldier. The enemy were nearly at the muzzle of the piece. "Surrender!" they were heard shouting; "surrender the gun!" Breathed's response was a roar, which hurled back the front rank.
There they would receive Lomax's fire in front; Wickham's in flank; and Breathed's transversely. The cross fire on that point, over which the enemy must pass, would be deadly. Take a pencil, reader, and draw the diagram, and lines of fire. That will show Stuart's excellent design.
Before the dispositions described in the foregoing had been completed, Breathed's battery, which had been masked in the woods to the right and front of the position occupied by the Sixth Michigan, opened fire with shell.
The battle was opened by Wickham's brigade of Virginians commanded by Colonel T.H. Owen of the Third Virginia cavalry. It was the First, Second and Third Virginia that led the advance. Pennington gave Breathed's battery much the worst of it. The truth is that Fitz. Lee did not find Custer ready to oppose him, though it did not take him long to get ready, after he was attacked.
Major McClellan also quotes Major P.P. Johnston, who commanded a section of Breathed's battery in the fight, as saying: "My battery was hotly engaged. The battle was of the most obstinate character, Fitz. Lee exerting himself to the utmost to push the enemy, and Custer seeming to have no thought of retiring."
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.
"What's the matter?" asked the citizen. "Well, we are retreating." "Who is after you?" "Nobody but old Jim Breathed and his men, armed with fence-rails." Such was one of a dozen incidents in Breathed's life. Let me come to that which took place near Spottsylvania Court-House. Grant had moved, as we have seen, by his left flank toward that place.
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