The battalion lost in this unfortunate affair between fifty and sixty men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Colonel Johnson and Lieutenant Colonel Brown made narrow escapes, the former having his horse killed and his sabre shot away, whilst the latter received several severe cuts over the head. If unfortunate for the Maryland battalion, however, it was fortunate for Baker, whose brigade of North Carolinians would most assuredly have been cut to pieces had the enemy not been held in check for a full half hour, thereby enabling them to escape. The force encountered turned out to be Custer’s brigade of four thousand men, supported by the rest of Merritt’s division of cavalry. Among the officers captured at the fight at Pollard’s Farm, as it is called, was First Lieutenant George Howard, of company C, the particulars of which are too good to be lost, although it does seem near akin to profanity to laugh when so many were made to weep. It appears that the Lieutenant, who could never be induced to don a uniform or ride a fast horse, finding himself hard pressed in the general rout, quietly dropped off unperceived, and concealed himself in a strip of woods that skirted the roadside. The pursuers passed by without observing him, and he began to congratulate himself upon his narrow escape, when unfortunately two or three straggling troopers stumbled upon his place of concealment. It was instantly suggested to him to pass himself off as a farmer of the neighborhood, and his appearance and dress indicated as much. To an inquiry of one of the Yankee soldiers as to “what he was doing there?” he replied that “a fight had taken place on his farm between their fellows and some Rebs, and he had sought the woods for safety.” The party believed it, and in company they rode down to the scene of conflict, when the first object that met his gaze was one of his own men sitting in a fence corner, severely wounded. Forgetting himself, and the enemy with him, and yielding to the impulses of his generous nature, he threw himself from his horse, and advancing to the side of the suffering man called him by name, and inquired if he was much hurt. “Pretty badly, _Lieutenant_,” was the reply, and the next minute he found himself seized, and a prisoner in the hands of his late companions. “Lieutenant, ah!” exclaimed one of them, in utter amazement, and glancing first at rider and then at horse, “_well, I must say that some of you Reb officers do beat the devil on a make-up_!” CHAPTER VII. For the next few days the battalion was engaged in skirmishing about Hanover Court House, the enemy occupying them there whilst his columns were crossing at Dabney’s Ferry, and pressing on towards Richmond.