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Updated: June 22, 2025
At Gainesville this road was crossed by another, which, lost in dense woods, appeared once more on the open heights to the far north-east, where the white buildings of Centreville glistened in the sunshine.
The second squadron of our regiment, under Captain O. J. Downing, moved to Thoroughfare Gap and returned to Gainesville, where it joined the regiment, and then marched with us to the Junction viâ Bristoe and Catlett's. Before night we were sent out on picket in the vicinity of Catlett's Station, where we relieved the First Virginia Cavalry.
But where to go, how to begin, I knew not. One day there appeared in the Selma paper a letter from Surgeon W.T. McAllister, Army of Tennessee, describing the dreadful condition of hundreds of sick and wounded men, who, after the terrible battle of Shiloh and the subsequent evacuation of Corinth, had been huddled into hospital-quarters at Gainesville, Alabama, and inquiring for a "lady" to assist him in organizing, and in caring for the sick.
It was not till the morning was well on that the brigade of Taliaferro's division near Groveton, commanded by Colonel Bradley Johnson, was warned by the cavalry that the enemy was moving through Gainesville in great strength. A skirmish took place a mile or two north of that village, and Johnson, finding himself menaced by far superior numbers, fell back to the wood near the Douglass House.
Now here Drew was, half the continent away from Gainesville and Tennessee, wearing Anse’s spurs and half of Anse’s name—to find a father he had not known was still alive, until last year. The Kentuckian was sure of only one thing right now, he was not going to enter a town or a stretch of country where Hunt Rennie was the big man, and claim to be Rennie’s unknown son.
He was back in an incredibly short space of time. It may be that he heard the sound of firing and was on his way when the adjutant found him. Fitzhugh Lee followed Custer half way to Gainesville and then withdrew. Near that place was found a line of federal infantry sent out to support the cavalry, but it did not advance far enough to get into the fight.
All through the afternoon, while the sharp-set Confederates were sweeping away the profits which the Northern sutlers had wrung from Northern soldiers, Stuart's vigilant patrols sent in report on report of the Federal movements. From Warrenton heavy columns were hurrying over the great highroad to Gainesville, and from Warrenton Junction a large force of all arms was marching direct on Bristoe.
On a Sunday in May of ’65, back in Gainesville, when Forrest’s men had finally accepted surrender and the deadness of defeat, a Union trooper had worn those spurs into church. And Boyd Barrett had sold his horse the same day to buy back those silver bits because he knew what they meant to his cousin Drew.
He was not aware that King's division, so far from intercepting Jackson's retreat, had abandoned the field of Groveton at 1 A.M., and, finding its position untenable in face of superior numbers, had fallen back on Manassas; or that Ricketts, who had by this time reached Gainesville, had in consequence continued his retreat in the same direction.
Pope appears to have acquiesced, and a line of battle near Warrenton, with a strong reserve at Greenwich, to the right rear, was then decided on. Franklin's army corps from the Peninsula, instead of proceeding to Aquia Creek, was disembarking at Alexandria, and Halleck had been requested to push these 10,000 men forward with all speed to Gainesville.
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