The old Company of Capt. Grubb was now officered by Capt. Dowdell and Lieut. Sam. Grubb, who were promoted, and by Lieut. T. W. White who was elected Second Lieutenant.
Marcellus French had been made Captain of Co. F, with Charles James as his First Lieutenant, and everything put in order, as far as possible, to make the battalion efficient.
One morning, about the middle of August, Triplett, of Co. F, reported to the Colonel that a regiment of Yankee cavalry, encamped on the Rappahannock, near Orleans, in Fauquier county, was in the habit of sending a party every day, about 3 o’clock, to Barbour’s Cross Roads, on a scout; and the Colonel at once resolved to attempt their capture. So starting with about one hundred men he reached, just before midnight, an admirable place of concealment in the thick pines near the Cross Roads, where the command halted to wait until the scouting party came along the next day. The time passed wearily enough in that hot, piney encampment, but every man knew that an absolute certainty of success depended on their lying hid until the enemy came.
Lieut. Chiswell, with seventeen men of Co. B, was stationed in the thick bushes close along the road, with instructions to fire when the Yankees came opposite them, and a picket was placed on the Orleans road half a mile below, to watch for the enemy, and now nothing remained but to wait for the game.
About 3 o’clock, the picket came quietly in and reported above one hundred approaching, when all the men got up from their lounging among the broom sedge and mounted their horses, and notice being sent to Lieut. Chiswell, everything was, as the man-o’-wars-man would say, “cleared for action.” After waiting anxiously, with ears strained to catch the sound, for about ten minutes, the carbines of Chiswell’s men rung out, and with a shout, away dashed the mounted men to charge. On emerging from the pines into the road, the Yankees were seen in the field on the opposite side, in great confusion from the unexpected volley they had received, but as soon as they saw the battalion they dashed off towards a gap in the fence, to gain the road again; but now one of those unaccountable things, which so often occur without any reason at all, and just at the moment when their influence is most damaging, happened; and as Col. White, Adjt. Watts, and Capt. Myers, who were a little distance in front of the command, galloped up towards the gap to cut off the enemy’s escape, and thinking they were followed by the men, the Major, who was exactly at the head of the column, wheeled it down the road, leaving these three officers to meet the sixty Yankees alone.