Three or four of the enemy fell, and a few horses were captured, but the most of them made their escape. A part of the command, under Captain Grubb, were standing in the road when two or three pickets, who had been stationed on the Hamilton road, alarmed at the firing, came up, and were halted with a demand for a surrender. Some of Grubb’s men drew up their pistols to fire upon them, but the Captain prevented it, saying, "don’t shoot them, they will surrender," when one of the Yankees discharged his carbine almost in Captain Grubb’s face, and at the same time exclaimed, “I surrender,” and the whole party gave themselves up as prisoners.
Capt. Grubb fell, mortally wounded, and with mournful hearts his men carried him back to his father’s house near Hillsborough, where he died in about two hours, and the battalion met with a loss that was well nigh irreparable, for he was one of the best, if not the very best officer in it. He had been in the service from the commencement of the war, first as a member of Capt. N. R. Heaton’s Company, (A,) 8th Regiment Va. Volunteers, and the gallant Heaton bears willing testimony to the noble daring of R. B. Grubb, while under his command, at the bloody battles of Manassas and Ball’s Bluff, while Gen. Eppa Hunton pronounces him one of the best men he ever had in that regiment of heroes, whose name is crowned with the glory that beams brightly upon the fame of Virginia, won in a hundred battles. In the Spring of 1862, “Dick” Grubb was discharged from the infantry service, and going to the Valley, attached himself to the 7th Va. Cavalry, where he distinguished himself as a scout for Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Wm. E. Jones.
In the fall of that year, he obtained permission to raise a company for White’s battalion, in which he was entirely successful, as has been shown.
After this affair at Waterford, which had been fruitful only in disaster to his battalion, Colonel White established a camp on the Blue Ridge near Mr. Howell’s, where he remained for several days, during which time the business of the command was, to some extent, brought into shape, as it was highly necessary to do, for it had begun to suffer for want of proper attention.