of a mile nearer the Baltimore and
Gettysburg pike, because he learned that the Second brigade (Custer's)
of the Third division was occupying his position of the day before.

General Kilpatrick, in his report says:

"At 11 p.m. (July 2) received orders to move (from Hunterstown) to
Two Taverns, which point we reached at daylight. At 8 a.m. (July 3)
received orders from headquarters cavalry corps to move to the left
of our line and attack the enemy's right and rear with my whole
command and the reserve brigade. By some mistake, General Custer's
brigade was ordered to report to General Gregg and he (Custer) did
not rejoin me during the day."

General Custer, in his report, gives the following, which is without
doubt, the true explanation of the "mistake." He says:

"At an early hour on the morning of the third, I received an order
through a staff officer of the brigadier general commanding the
division (Kilpatrick), to move at once my command and follow the
First brigade (Farnsworth) on the road leading from Two Taverns to
Gettysburg. Agreeably to the above instructions, my column was formed
and moved out on the road designated, when a staff officer of
Brigadier General Gregg, commanding the Second division, ordered me
to take my command and place it in position on the pike leading from
York[10] (Hanover) to Gettysburg, which position formed the extreme
right of our line of battle on that day."

Thus it is made plain that there was no "mistake" about it. It was
Gregg's prescience. He saw the risk of attempting to guard the right
flank with only the two decimated brigades of his own division. Seeing
with him was to act. He took the responsibility to intercept
Kilpatrick's rear and largest brigade, turn it off the Baltimore pike,
to the right, instead of allowing it to go to the left, as it had been
ordered to do, and thus, doubtless, a serious disaster was averted. It
makes one tremble to think what might have been, of what inevitably must
have happened, had Gregg, with only the two little brigades of McIntosh
and Irvin Gregg and Randol's battery, tried to cope single-handed with
the four brigades and three batteries, comprising the very flower of the
confederate cavalry and artillery, which those brave knights--Stuart,
Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee--were marshaling in person on Cress's ridge. If
Custer's presence on the field was, as often has been said,
"providential,"