and Sixth with
Devin's regiments promptly joining in the pursuit.

Custer's approach was heralded by an amusing incident. The band that had
been challenging us with its lips of brass stopped short in the midst of
one of its most defiant strains, and the last note of the "Bonnie Blue
Flag" had scarcely died on the air, when far to the left and front were
heard the cheery strains of "Yankee Doodle."[26] No other signal was
needed to tell of the whereabouts of our Michigan comrades, and it was
then that the whole line moved forward, only to see as it emerged into
the open, the Tar-heels of the South making swift time towards Crump's
Creek, closely followed by Custer and his Michiganders. The latter had
accomplished without loss by the flanking process what he had tried in
vain to do by the more direct method.

The charge of the Fifth and Seventh Michigan, commanded by Captain
Magoffin and Major Walker respectively, and led by General Custer in
person, was most brilliant and successful, the Seventh continuing the
pursuit for about three miles. First Sergeant Mortimer Rappelye of troop
C, Sixth, and one of his men were killed at the first fire. Rappelye
was in command of the advance guard and had been slated for a commission
which he would have received had he lived.

That night the cavalry encamped on Crump's Creek. The next day the army
was all over and Grant had taken up a new line extending from Crump's
Creek to the Totopotomoy. Still, he was uncertain of what Lee was doing
and it became necessary to find out. This led to what was one of the
most sanguinary and courageously contested cavalry engagements of the
entire war--the battle of Haw's Shop--in which Gregg and Custer with the
Second division and the Michigan brigade, unassisted, defeated most
signally, two divisions under the command of Wade Hampton in his own
person. Indeed it is not certain that it was not even a more notable
victory than that over Stuart on the right flank at Gettysburg. It was
won at a greater sacrifice of life than either Brandy Station or Yellow
Tavern.

After the death of Stuart, though so short a time had elapsed, the
confederate cavalry had been reorganized into three divisions, commanded
by Wade Hampton, Fitzhugh Lee, and W.H.F. Lee, the first named being the
ranking officer. His division had been largely reinforced, notably by a
brigade of South Carolinians under M.C. Butler who, after the war, was
the colleague of Hampton in the Uni