policy to continue to push Lee's army still farther westward, and to interpose his cavalry between them and his own army, thus effectually concealing from them his movements. For this purpose, it was necessary that the passes of the Bull Run Mountains should be occupied and guarded, and every attempt of the rebel cavalry to pass through them promptly and effectually thwarted. General Kilpatrick was sent to Aldie Gap, with orders to move through it, and to return through Ashby's Gap. Proceeding at once to the first position, he encountered the troops of Fitzhugh Lee, forming the advance-guard of Stuart's cavalry, which were determined to hold that important pass. By a rapid and skilful movement he succeeded in gaining possession of a long low line of hills which commanded Lee's position; and the rebel commander, furious at being thus outwitted, made a succession of desperate charges, in the hope of regaining his lost ground. It was in vain; but though thrice thoroughly foiled, and knowing that Kilpatrick as well as himself had sent for re-enforcements, the rebel general resolved to make one more determined charge upon Kilpatrick's extreme right, before his re-enforcements could come up. Kilpatrick saw the coming charge, and prepared to meet it. The rebels, massed heavily, came on with great fury, bore back the First Massachusetts, which resisted the shock with unflinching bravery, forced back the remainder of the right, and thought they should gain an easy victory; but Kilpatrick now advanced upon them with the First Maine and Randall's battery, and, ordering the battery to reserve its fire till the rebels were within fifty yards, at the instant of their fire, shouted "Forward!" and the Maine cavalry rushed upon the foe, breaking their ranks, through which Randall's grape and canister had already ploughed broad furrows. Rallying the remainder of his troops, he now gave orders for an advance all along the lines, and charged at once upon the enemy, who fled, routed and in confusion, as far as Middleburg. This was the most bloody cavalry battle which had thus far occurred during the war. On the 21st, he again encountered and defeated the rebel cavalry at Upperville. On the 27th of June, General Kilpatrick succeeded General Stahel as commander of a division of cavalry of about five thousand inen; the other two divisions of Pleasonton's corps being under command of Generals Buford and Gregg. General Merritt commanded the regular cavalry brigade, and Generals Custer and Farnsworth the other brigades of Kilpatrick's division. The cavalry had crossed the Potomac, and was moving rapidly upon Gettys burg, where it had ample work before it.

On the second day of the Gettysburg battles, Kilpatrick's division was engaged in fierce conflict with Lee's cavalry at Hunterstown, on the left of the rebel line. The fight was a severe one, and was kept up till late at night, and, though ter

minating indecisively, the preponderance of success was on the side of the Union troops.

On the 3d of July, Kilpatrick, moving before the dawn, and his division strengthened by the regular brigade under General Merritt, took position at daylight on the extreme left of the Union army, beyond Little Round Top, with orders to charge the rebel infantry, should opportunity offer. He had skirmished with the enemy from ten A. M. to two P. M., and had quietly and without the knowledge of the enemy forced his way far upon his flank and rear, waiting the favorable moment to strike.

It soon came. At four P.M., Lee, whose troops, though fighting with a desperation unequalled in the previous battles of the war, had everywhere been beaten back with terrible slaughter, made his last and most desperate move in the vain hope of wresting success from his adversary. He sent Longstreet's fine corps, which had hitherto been mostly in reserve, to march around Little Round Top, and strike the Union army in flank and rear. The conformation of the field was such, and the clouds of smoke so heavy and dense, that there was good reason to believe the movement would not be observed till its purpose was nearly or quite accomplished; and if so, the defeat, which otherwise seemed inevitable, would be changed into victory. But the movement was observed by Kilpatrick, who, comprehending at once that if it succeeded the day would be lost, hurled his troops at once in a most furious charge upon Hood's division (Longstreet's left), and, though met with desperate firmness, at last broke and drove them back, and compelled the rebel corps sullenly to retreat to their line on Seminary Ridge. It was the death-throe of the great battle, the last act in the three days' struggle, which has made the hills of Gettysburg immortal in history. In this charge Kilpatrick's division lost heavily: General Farnsworth, the commander of one of his brigades, a gallant soldier, promoted to the rank of brigadiergeneral but four days before, was among the slain, as were also several other officers of inferior grade. During Lee's retreat to the Potomac, in the next ten days, Kilpatrick was constantly in the pursuit, harassing the enemy's flanks and rear; and sometimes in advance of him, obstructing his route, holding passes in the mountains against him, cutting off detachments of his troops, destroying his trains, and in every way delaying his progress. At Monterey, the pass over the South Mountain, the rebels attacked him in the darkness of a night of heavy rain, as he passed along a narrow road, with the high mountain-ridge towering above him on one side, and deep, precipitous ravines on the other; but notwithstanding the darkness and danger he repulsed the enemy, and captured their guns and four hundred prisoners. Pursuing them through the mountain-defiles the next day, he captured eight hundred and sixty prisoners, and

the immense wagon-train of Ewell's corps, nine miles long, and defeated Stuart's rebel cavalry, in an action of one hour and forty minutes. On the 6th of July, he again attacked and defeated Stuart at Hagerstown, and compelled him to burn a large wagon-train. Joining Buford at Williamsport, General Kilpatrick engaged almost the entire rebel army, and though at one time completely enveloped by the enemy, extricated himself from his perilous position, after inflicting heavy loss on the foe. On the morning of the 14th of July, he charged upon the rear of Lee's army, then escaping across the Potomac, and besides covering the ground with killed and wounded rebels, captured upwards of fifteen hundred prisoners, two guns, and three battle-flags, in the course of the ten days; his division had taken forty-five hundred prisoners, nine guns, and eleven battle-flags.

Passing over the sharp but brief battle of the Union troops with Stuart's cavalry, in September, in which Kilpatrick took an active part, we come to the attempt of General Lee to flank the Union army, north of the Rapidan, in October, 1863. Here, at Brandy Station, so often a cavalry battle-field during the war, Kilpatrick won new honors. His troops had been guarding the flanks of the army; and, after severe fighting, Buford fell back from Raccoon Ford to Stevensburg, and apprized Kilpatrick, who was fighting near Culpeper, of his intention to join him that evening at Brandy Station. Having repulsed the enemy, Kilpatrick moved leisurely along, and found, as he ascended the hills overlooking the station, that Buford had fallen back rapidly, and was beyond Brandy Station, and that Stuart's cavalry and a division of rebel infantry had moved on his left flank, and were between him and Buford, and were also stretched along his left flank. It was a moment requiring decisive action, for with a few minutes' delay all would have been lost. He had about three thousand men with him, and he knew they could be trusted. Forming them instantly in three heavy columns, with a strong line of skirmishers on front, flanks, and rear, he moved forward slowly at first, his skirmishers holding back the eager enemy, till within a few hundred yards of the rebel lines-his batteries, meantime, opening great gaps in the enemy's rank with their rapid and deadly fire of schrapnel, grape, and canister-when, suddenly ordering his band to strike up "Yankee Doodle," and his own clear voice shouting, " Forward-charge!" he hurled his columns on the rebel lines with such fury, that they broke in wild dismay, and his gallant three thousand passed through, almost unharmed, though inflicting severe loss on the enemy.

The rebel cavalry, vexed and mortified that their foe should have escaped them so easily, reorganized and charged upon the Union cavalry, now re-enforced by Buford's division. Repulsed

with heavy loss, they charged again and again, only to be met by still fiercer counter-charges, till long after nightfall, when, exhausted by their numerous efforts, they fell back, and could not again be rallied; when the Union cavalry, gathering up their dead and wounded, crossed quietly and safely the Rappahannock, and overtook the main army. When Lee's army began their return march to the Rapidan, Custer's brigade of Kilpatrick's division attacked their cavalry at Buckland's Mills, and, with less than two thousand men, drove them seven or eight miles, with heavy loss, till, coming up with their main army, he found himself so largely outnumbered that he was compelled to fall back, and extricated himself by great effort from their attack.

Ambitious of the honor of penetrating to Richmond, and releasing our gallant but suffering soldiers, who were prisoners at Libby and Belle Isle, Kilpatrick led an expedition against that city, on the 28th of February, 1864. The noble and daring Dahlgren, as heroic a soul as ever perished on the field of battle, led his regiment in this expedition, and gave up his young life in his effort to rescue his fellows, being murdered in the most cruel and cowardly manner. Kilpatrick penetrated within the second line of defences, and his scouts entered the city itself. His attack carried terror to the hearts of the rebel citizens; but the force they were able to collect to oppose his further progress was such as to render the attempt to force his way into the city a useless waste of life, and he was compelled to withdraw, which he did in good order, and with moderate loss, save that of his beloved friend and kindred spirit, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren.

In April, 1864, General Kilpatrick was ordered to report to General Sherman, who, deprived of his great cavalry captain, Sheridan, was determined to make his place good by calling to his army the dashing young cavalry general of the Army of the Potomac. He was by him assigned to the command of a division of his cavalry, with his head-quarters in the field; and in that wondrous march, begun early in May, Kilpatrick's place of honor was in the front, where the fighting was the fiercest. Crossing Taylor's Ridge, driving the enemy's cavalry back through Snake Creek Gap to Buzzard's Roost, and then dashing down to aid McPherson in his attack on Resaca, he was the soul of the fight; in that fiercely fought battle before Resaca, finding that one of his brigades had been repulsed in a charge upon the enemy, and were falling back, he ordered up a fresh brigade, and, rallying the retreating troops, led them in person in a headlong charge upon the rebel infantry, who were driven back, and the important point gained and held; but he was borne fainting from the field from a desperate rifle-shot wound in the groin.

Three months have passed, and his wound is rapidly healing, but not yet healed, when he hears that Atlanta is tottering to its fall. He hastens, against the remonstrances of his physicians and friends, back to his command, and though yet unable to endure the fatigues of the saddle, at the command of General Sherman fits out a cavalry force for an expedition in the rear of the rebel army, having for its object the destruction of their lines of communication, the West Point and the Macon and Atlanta Railroads. In the attempt to accomplish these objects, which would inevitably result in Hood's ruin, he was opposed by greatly superior forces; and though by extraordinary daring and tact he was able to break these lines for a short distance, yet the fury of the rebel attacks was such, and their superiority in numbers and position was so great, that it was, at last, only by the most consummate generalship that he was able to break through their ranks, which had completely surrounded him, and make his way back to the Union army, with but slight loss.

When General Sherman resolved upon his campaign from Atlanta to the sea, he placed Kilpatrick in command of his cavalry corps; and in that, as in his campaign in the Carolinas, the cavalry were ordered to cover both flanks, and thus to conceal from the rebel armies the actual movements and objective points of the main army. With consummate skill the cavalry was handled, and the enemy constantly deceived into the belief that other points than those really intended were the objectives of the Union army. General Kilpatrick attempted the release of our suffering soldiers who were prisoners at Millen; but the enemy were forewarned of his approach thither just long enough before he reached the town to hurry off the prisoners, who were, however, very soon exchanged. The only severe cavalry fighting of this campaign was near Buckhead Creek and at Waynesboro'. In both instances, Wheeler's cavalry was severely beaten at the former point, with a loss of about six hundred; and at the latter with probably not less than a thousand killed, wounded, and prisoners.

In the campaign through the Carolinas, with a large cavalry force, and the brevet rank of major-general, Kilpatrick found ample scope to distinguish himself. Making a feint on Augusta, and destroying the railroad leading to Charleston for a considerable distance, he outwitted his old adversary Wheeler, who found no point where he thought himself able to make a stand against him till he reached Aiken, where, after skirmishing for two days, to divert Wheeler's attention from Columbia, Kilpatrick suddenly crossed the Edisto, and moved upon Lexington Court-House, thus drawing his antagonist away from Columbia, and compelling him to make a wide détour to reach Sherman's front. The rebels, finding Wheeler unable to cope with Kil