582 NortH Carorina Troops, 1861~’65.

Cavalry), which latter regiment had been detached from the
brigade in the winter of 1863-’64, and Colonel John A. Baker
of the Third Cavalry, being senior Colonel, assumed com-
mand of the brigade until 30 May, 1864, when Brigadier-
General P. M. B. Young was temporarily commander of the
brigade.

On 4 June, 1864, Lieutenant-Colonel Rufus Barringer,
of the Ninth (First Cavalry), was commissioned Brigadier-
General and assigned to the command of this brigade and
thus continued until 3 April, 1865, when he was captured
near Namozine Church, Virginia, on the retreat to Appo-
mattox. None of its commanders ever did more than Gen-
eral Barringer to maintain the efficiency and reputation of
this brigade. In his capital sketch of the Forty-first (Third
Cavalry), on page 782, Vol. 2, of these histories, Sergeant J.
B. Hill states as an official fact, that this brigade, on 1 March,
1865, numbered “actually more than one-third of the total
cavalry of Lee’s army.” That, of this force, only two officers
and twenty-one men surrendered at Appomattox tells a won-
drous story of the great daring and casualties of its officers
and men in a great crisis. All had learned to meet calamity
fearlessly and to overcome it when possible. I venture the
assertion that this brigade faced and fought and prevented,
by their courage and soldierly sagacity, more dire disaster
on “the retreat” than any other brigade in Lee’s army.

The details of the services of this brigade during two of
the greatest campaigns of any war have been so fully told, es-
pecially in General Barringer’s history of the Ninth North
Carolina and in that of the Sixty-third by Paul B. Means,
that it is useless to recite them here.

The staff officers of the brigade, as far as I can get them
accurately, were: Captain James L. Gaines, Assistant-Ad-
jutant-General; Captain Chiswell W. Dabney, Inspector-
General, and Lieutenant Kerr Craige, Aide to General Gor-
don, and Lieutenant Fred. C. Ford, Aide to General Bar-
ringer.

Jurian 8. Carr.

DuruaM, N. C.,
9 April, 1901.