information in regard to the enemy, while he could look down upon us. Next the information that the enemy was massing behind the houses and trees of James City, and then they displayed a long line on foot, into which General Davies burst a shell, causing it to disappear.

All our cavalry was now driven in. In front, on the center of Church road, it was within a thousand yards, and it was entirely in everywhere else, save one regiment up the road to Griffinsburg. (It was stationed at Kilpatrick's headquarters.) Also on the right of Mott, where Brigadier-General Davies had his headquarters, with a battalion or so and two guns of a 3-inch rifle battery, and between the two positions some were deployed in the woods. The enemy made a show of coming down the hill through James City, and Mott deployed and loaded to meet them. General Davies was ready for a charge. The enemy kept back, and there made much display of extending his right very far. General Kilpatrick, attended by his staff, rode to my headquarters. We seemed to agree that the enemy must be meaning very little on our left, and also we agreed on the choice of the next position, if this one should be abandoned.

In the night I had received the dispatch, Numbers 6, and in the morning I had sent Captain William to corps headquarters, with the verbal message that we had news from the signal station on Thoroughfare Mountain that the enemy was advancing in three column, and that I intended to maintain my position. I expected that I might receive encouragement in this determination, because my position and what was evidently transacting on the enemy's side rendered me liable, if I held on to it, to become so much engaged as to require support to clear myself. The answer, which came verbally, showed that I could in no case, if fighting here, receive support, and I received the written dispatch, Numbers 7,"Not to allow myself to be brought to an engagement." This was all I needed to convince me that I was now, i.e., by the lapse of time, occupying a cavalry and not an infantry position. It was 1 p.m. Our cavalry on the left and in front had been driven in early in the day. The enemy had made their entree in force into James city, and extended to right and left of it. The only pickets we had out (save the regiment on the road to Griffinsburg) had been a long time skirmishing on a line between the head of the mill stream hollow and the road by the church, not a thousand yards distant from my line, perfect statu quo, all the time neither gaining nor losing.

I issued orders for the retirement of my division piecemeal, changing front, so as to face the only direction of danger. I gave no order for any change whatever at Kilpatrick's position, no change there being deemed by me to be necessary. The message which I sent to him was that I should retire from where I was to take up finally the position I had spoken to him, of that the movement would commence immediately, and the cavalry cover it. I sent Lieutenant Ordway with a message, in answer to Numbers 7, intended simply to reassure General French that I was acting and relying upon my written instructions but the mission was not fulfilled with that accomplished staff officer's ordinary skill. At the same time I ordered Clark to take two sections of his battery back on the road, and halt in the first position in which they could be used. My infantry was encheloned to Brown's Store, and halted with the left resting there, the brigade of Colonel McAllister remaining unmoved, until I ascertained that General Davies was sufficient to restrain any enterprise