The Falling Flag: Evacuation of Richmond, Retreat and Surrender at Appomattox — John Shaqi
The Falling Flag: Evacuation of Richmond, Retreat and Surrender at AppomattoxBoykin, Edward M.
History
The Falling Flag: Evacuation of Richmond, Retreat and Surrender at Appomattox
Boykin, Edward M.
Richmond (Va.) -- History -- Siege, 1864-1865
The fifth squadron of the Seventh, that had been thrown out as
skirmishers when we first came on the ground, had kept their position
covering our left flank when the fight at the batteries was going on.
And when we commenced falling back after the guns, the adjutant,
Lieutenant Capers, was sent to bring them to the road, so as to join
the regiment. They had also been dismounted, and their horses sent
with the rest. He found them, led them to the road, and, on getting on
it at a point nearer to the town than where we struck it, hearing the
bugles and the rush of the cavalry on the train, he at once posted the
companies, with their captains, Doby and Dubose, in the woods
immediately on the road-side, and with the parting salutation, "Take
care of yourselves, boys," (he had been a private in one of the
companies, and both were from his native district), dashed back to his
place in the regiment and disappeared round a turn in the road. They
had scarcely lost sight of him when a heavy volley rang out, and his
horse came round the bend at full speed without his rider, jumping
over in his fright a broken caisson that lay across the road--the
horse, a very fine roan, the one he was riding when, at "Amelia
Spring," he, Capers, was the only one of the five in advance who
escaped, to meet his fate that night, pierced by a dozen balls; the
whole fire of the column was concentrated upon him, for we found his
body next day. Some kind hand had given him a soldier's grave; some
one, most likely of those who fought us, who could not but respect and
admire the gallant young fellow lying in his blood, and with the
feeling developed by a soldier's life, "So be it to me and mine in my
sorrow as I may be to thee this day." All the respect was shown that
circumstances admitted of.
One of our captains, who was wounded at the "guns" severely, fell into
the enemy's hands when we moved them--as everybody was too busy to
look after the wounded, and ambulance men and stretchers were this
time neither in the front or rear. He was taken up by his new friends
quite tenderly, as he thought, and put into an ambulance; but in the
course of the evening's entertainment the Yankee wounded came dropping
in, and our friend, Captain Walker, was disposed of rather
unceremoniously on the roadside, for others they valued at a higher
rate than even a Confederate captain.
[Illustration]
Immediately after the adjutant's horse came Custar's cavalry. Seeing
all clear before them, they came on without a check until, when
nearly opposite where our men of the Fifth squadron were lying in the
woods, they caught the fire of the entire squadron, which emptied a
good many saddles, and was the last shot probably fired that night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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