Col. White and his people moved up as close to them as the shells would permit, and the Colonel conceived the idea that with four hundred dismounted men he could capture the whole roadfull, but after sending repeatedly to Col. Dulaney for the required force, that officer finally sent him forty-two men, whom White sent back in disgust and gave up the project.
By nine o’clock everything was quiet along Hampton’s lines, and the utterly routed and defeated army of Sheridan was in full retreat towards Grant’s headquarters, where he published to the world that he had whipped Hampton’s cavalry, driving it to Gordonsville, but finding a heavy force of infantry in the entrenchments at that place had given up the pursuit.
The literal fact in the case was, that Sheridan had been most splendidly outgeneraled, and most terribly beaten by half his number, and not a solitary infantry soldier was engaged in the fight, nor did he get in sight of Gordonsville, but no one blames him for _thinking_ that he met infantry, because the “new issue” certainly did _act_ infantry up to nature, but they were raw recruits, and had never been under fire but once before, while Sheridan’s were all veteran troops. Pollard, in “The Lost Cause,” makes the same unfounded assertion, that Sheridan was “repulsed by infantry in the rifle-pits,” but it is probable he drew his information from the official report of that General, instead of the one made by General Hampton.
During the fight of to-day, Lieut. Nich. Dorsey, of Co. B, who had been a prisoner, closely confined in Fort McHenry for several months, reported to the command for duty, having made his escape by cutting through the slate roof of his prison with a barlow knife, and at once assumed command of his company.
Early on the morning of the 13th, the army of Hampton started in pursuit of the Yankees, and about 3 o’clock came up with their rear guard at the North Anna, when some skirmishing took place, but the enemy moved rapidly, and could not be brought to a stand long enough to make a fight of it, and at night Hampton’s men went to the Rail Road, where they drew three double handfuls of corn for their horses, which was the first grain they had eaten since the 8th. In the morning the pursuit was continued through Caroline county, but Sheridan marched rapidly, taking every horse in the country he passed through, and killing his own as fast as they gave out. It was estimated that in his retreat of one hundred miles his army left, on an average, twelve dead horses to the mile; that besides his losses in horse-flesh at the battle, twelve hundred were shot, by his order, on his retreat; but he took quite that number from the citizens along his route, and in a manner that no other man than a Sheridan or Sherman would have done.