Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.
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A CAVALRY CHARGE.
THE
Falling Flag.
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND,
RETREAT AND SURRENDER
AT
APPOMATTOX.
By EDWARD M. BOYKIN,
LT. COL. 7th REG'T S.C. CAVALRY.
Third Edition.
NEW YORK:
E.J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS,
MURRAY STREET.
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
E.J. HALE & SON,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
DEDICATION.
TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE
7th South Carolina Cavalry,
THIS
SHORT ACCOUNT OF AN INTERESTING PERIOD IN THEIR
MILITARY HISTORY,
AND THAT OF
THE CAUSE THEY LOVED SO WELL, AND FOR WHICH THEY
FOUGHT SO FAITHFULLY,
Is Dedicated,
BY ONE WHO CONSIDERS HAVING BEEN THEIR COMRADE THE
PROUDEST RECOLLECTION OF HIS LIFE.
PREFACE.
The writer only attempts to give some account of what occurred withinhis own observation; he would have esteemed it a privilege to enterinto all the detail that lights up the last desperate struggle, madeby that glorious remnant of the Army of Northern Virginia, with itsskeleton battalions from every Southern State; illustrating their ownfame and that of their noble leader, mile by mile, on that weary marchfrom Richmond to Appomattox.
But he has confined himself to his own experiences, and in a greatmeasure to what happened to his own Brigade, because it was writtenout, immediately after the war, from that standpoint. And if there beany merit in it, it is simply as a journal—what one man saw, and theimpression produced thereby. This, even within a limited range, iftruly put, represents at least a phase of the last act in the bloodydrama that had been enacting for four years. More than this he couldnot hope to do, but leaves to abler hands the greater task that swellsthe current of events into the full tide of history.
Camden, South Carolina, }
June 15th, 1874. }
EVACUATION OF RICHMOND, 1865.
On Saturday, the 1st day of April, 1865, orders reached us at campheadquarters of the Seventh South Carolina Cavalry, Gary's Brigade, tosend forward all the dismounted men of the regiment to report to Lt.Col. Barham, Twenty-fourth Regiment Virginia Cavalry, in command ofdismounted men of the brigade, for duty on the lines. Began to thinkthat a move was intended of some sort, but on the brink, as all knewand felt for some time, of great