firing was hardly begun when Hancock was informed that the left
wing was seriously threatened so as to fully occupy Barlow. The
enemy's dismounted cavalry opened on him (sic.) with artillery and
pressed forward his skirmish line. The rapid firing of Sheridan's
attack helped to confirm the impression that this was a serious flank
attack by the enemy. These repeated reports prevented Hancock from
throwing his full strength into the attack along the plank road."

"The rapid firing of Sheridan's attack" is good. Sheridan is entitled to
the credit of placing Custer where he was. But that is all. Sheridan was
not on the ground to direct the attack in any way; nor was the division
commander on the ground. It was Custer's attack and it was Custer's
victory. The only dismounted cavalry that attacked Barlow was Rosser's
cavalry, and Custer's cavalry was between Rosser and Barlow. The only
artillery with which the dismounted cavalry opened on Barlow was
Rosser's battery and Custer and his men were between Barlow and that
battery. Had Barlow taken the trouble to ascertain what was really going
on in his front, an easy matter, he would have found that, so far from
this dismounted cavalry endangering his flank, they had been driven off
the field in headlong flight, leaving their dead and wounded. There was
never a moment during the entire day (May 6, 1864,) when Barlow was in
the slightest danger of being flanked. His failure to advance, enabled
Longstreet to swing across his front and attack Birney's left, thus
neutralizing Hancock's victory over Hill. If Barlow and Gibbon had
advanced as they were ordered to do, they would have struck Longstreet's
flank and, probably, crushed it.

All of which seems to demonstrate that, in battle, as in the ordinary
affairs of life, imaginary dangers often trouble us more than those
which are real.

The fear of being flanked was an ever present terror to the army of the
Potomac, and the apparition which appeared to McDowell at Manassas, to
Pope at the Second Bull Run, to Hooker at Chancellorsville, flitted over
the Wilderness also, and was the principal cause why that campaign was
not successful.

And then again, General Meade placed too low an estimate upon the value
of cavalry as a factor in battle and failed utterly to appreciate the
importance of the presence of Sheridan's troopers upon his left. Had
Meade and Hancock known Sheridan then, as they knew him a year later,
whe