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which friendship and affection will plant there;
and when flowers shall wither, his memory
will continue to bloom in many hearts.
After the death of the lamented General J. E. B. Stuart, General Wade
Hampton was assigned to the command of the cavalry. On the 12th of June
Hampton, with four thousand five hundred sabres, met Sheridan at Trevillian
Station with eight thousand. The First Maryland was posted on Hampton's
extreme left to support General Rosser. The dashing Custer opened the fight
with a charge of his brigade, and he went through Hampton's centre, creating
terrible confusion among the led horses and ordnance wagons; but the daring
and intrepid Rosser was in his way, and charging him in turn with his brigade
and Johnson with the First Maryland, he cut him in two, and pursued him to his
very wagon train, capturing his headquarters' wagon, and breaking up his
brigade. This charge of Rosser's is pronounced one of the most brilliant of the
many made during the war.
The battle of Trevillian raged for two days, and during that time charge after
charge was made, with varying success. For two days sabres flashed in a hand-
to-hand conflict, and the carbine and pistol did their deadly work, strewing the
plain with hundreds of dead and dying men. In those two dreadful days the little
First Maryland was ever in the van, and their gallant bearing elicited the admira-
tion of all. They fought as though to avenge the fall of their comrades at
Pollard's farm, and their sabres drank deeply of the blood of the foemen. But
Sheridan had met his match in Hampton, and suffered an unmistakable defeat.
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