On the evening of May 4th, the “Comanches” encamped in the pines on the Cataupin road, near the right of Gen. Lee’s army, and about six miles from Orange C. H.
The morning of May 5th opened calm and still, and there was no sign by which men could judge of the bloody day before them, for literally all was “quiet along the lines,” but the quiet of the scene was oppressive in its extreme stillness, and the sun rolled like an immense ball of barely red hot iron, seeming to be almost touching the tops of the pine trees under which lay the “Laurel Brigade,” unrefreshed by even the quiet repose of the past night, and many remarks were made about the singular appearance of the Day God as he waded higher and higher through the still, smoke-laden air of that battle-morn, some of the men repeating the Napoleonic exclamation, “remember the sun of Austerlitz,” and Colonel White declaring that it presaged a bloody day.
Soon after sunrise the command moved slowly down the Cataupin road, and in an hour the dismounted men were skirmishing with the enemy in the dense thickets of pine and undergrowth which closely bordered the road on either side and extended towards the river by Shady Grove and White Hall, but the battalion was not engaged, although rapidly marched from wing to wing, expecting each moment to be thrown upon the Yankee line, and not knowing just where the blue would break through the gray and compel a cavalry charge to drive them back, for the firing each moment grew in volume and intensity until the fight raged fiercely all along the lines. At this time the battalion was out of ammunition, and although details had been sent to the ordnance trains frequently, they always returned with the same aggravating report that none was to be procured, as the cavalry train had not yet come up, and under the circumstances the men watched with a far deeper interest than usual the progress of the battle. About the middle of the day Capt. Emmett, Rosser’s A. A. General, and Jim Robinson, the General’s pet courier, came from the front, both badly wounded, and told White’s men that the Yankees were reinforcing and they would soon have to charge, but about 2 o’clock General Rosser succeeded in driving the Yankees from their position, and at once pushed his brigade rapidly forward. Just as the battalion came in range of the enemy’s batteries the column halted, and for several minutes the situation was decidedly hot, the shells exploding precisely at that point, and causing the loss of several men and horses; but pretty soon one of the advance regiments drove off the annoying battery, and the whole column moved quickly forward over the Po river, where they struck a considerable force of the enemy, which, after a sharp fight, was completely routed, and Rosser’s men followed the retreating Yankees at a gallop, by some plantation roads and swamp paths, far to the left, bringing up at a body of woods on a hill about a mile from the river they had just crossed, and still on the Cataupin road, not far from Todd’s Tavern, having made a circuit in the chase of about three miles.