The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

THE ELEVENTH MAINE AT APPOMATTOX. 77
out horses which had been turned loose. About six o'clock in
the afternoon we heard cannon firing and fighting going on in
front of us a good distance ahead ;
later on a courier came back
and the news spread like fire running through the grass that
Sheridan's cavalry had captured a train of cars loaded with supplies;
then our officers commenced urging us on. Away we
went, until eleven o'clock that night, the eighth of April, '65.
We came up to the railroad and trains and to the cavalry guard-
ing the same, pushed across the track where two cars had been
shackled, then crossed a broad turnpike into a pine forest, and
here lay down for the night. At four o'clock in the morning,
April 9th, we moved up the broad pike straight ahead, with
woods on the left side and fields on the right. We arrived just
at daybreak at an almost square turn in the pike to the left, and
in the field on the right side of the pike were the headquarters
of Generals Sheridan and Custer. Our men at this time commenced
singing out " hot coffee." Gen. Sheridan came out and
said something to our commander. Gen. Ord. Our division,
the first. Twenty-fourth Army Corps, filed in to the field on the
right of the pike and commenced cooking coffee. The water
had not boiled when we heard rifle shots away out on the pike.
Soon they got thicker and faster and we had orders to fall in
quick. We kicked over the hot water and fell into line as quick
as we could. Orders were given to double-quick, so on we
went double-quick; a heavy growth of timber on the left side
of the pike and scrub oaks on the right. We had double-
quicked a long distance when we came to a down hill grade in
the pike. Here we met some of the cavalry falling back, com-
ing out of the scrub oak on the right side of the pike, and I
remember well a cavalry major coming up the pike and singing
out at the top of his voice for us to fall back, that we would all
be taken prisoners. Gen. Hill ordered us forward, and we
charged the pike till we came to si.x pieces of artillery—twelvepound
brass-pieces— in the middle of the pike. Right here
was a road on the left of the pike leading to Lynchburg, as we
understood at the time. Wc passed this road and the cannon,
meeting horses without riders. We cleared our way until we