Official Reports: Skirmish near Greenwich, Va., March 9, 1864— Report of Major George F. McCabe, Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Report of Maj. George F. McCabe, Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

HDQRS. DETACHMENT 13TH PENNSYLVANIA CAVALRY,        

March 10, 1864.

LIEUTENANT: I have the honor to report that the party who made the attack on the detachment Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry yesterday, 9th March, 1864, consisted of 40 men, under command of Mosby in person. I came up to him at Buckland Mills about 3.30 p.m. yesterday, and at once charged him. His command broke when I was a pistol-shot from him. I continued after him and ran his party through Thoroughfare Gap and on to his camp at Plains Station on the Manassas Gap road. I found his command encamped at that place in Sibley and shelter tents. He got his whole command in line, dismounted, behind a stone fence at that place, and I did not have men enough to attack him in his camp. I drove him so hard yesterday as to compel him to release 2 men he had captured, and they cut off their overcoats and blankets from their saddles so as to be lighter mounted, that they could get away. I do not think that there are more than 100 men in the camp at Plains Station, but I believe he can raise 500 men in a very short time. There would be no trouble to hem his camp in by parties going from Warrenton and this place.

Your obedient servant,

G. F. McCABE,        

Major Thirteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Lieutenant SWAN,
        Actg. Asst. Adjt. Gen., Second Div., Fifth Army Corps.

[First indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS SECOND DIVISION, FIFTH CORPS,        

March 10, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded.

This party was sent out to re-enforce one sent from Bristoe, which was being roughly handled.

R. B. AYRES,        

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

[Second indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS FIFTH ARMY CORPS,        

March 11, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded for the information of the major-general commanding Army of the Potomac.

GEO. SYKES,        

Major-General, Commanding.

ADDENDA.¹

March 9, a scout of 40 men, under the command of Lieutenant White, was attacked by the enemy in the vicinity of Greenwich. The party making the attack was composed of the Fourth Virginia Cavalry, Chincapin Rangers, and a detachment of Mosby's command. The casualties numbered 9, all taken prisoners; 4 wounded, now in hospital at Washington, D.C.

_______________

¹ From the return of Second Brigade, Second Division, Cavalry Corps, for March, 1864

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 33(Serial No. 60), p. 236-7

From Banks’ Division

NEW YORK, April 7.

A special dispatch to the Philadelphia Inquirer, dated Thorof [sic] Gap, Va., April 2d, via Baltimore, April 6^th, says that a rebel force of 7 regiments of infantry, 2 of cavalry, and 3 batteries, were thrown across the Rappahannock to cut off Col. Geary’s command at White Plains by a forced march.  They reached Salem, within 5 miles of the Union band last evening, with the intention of attacking Col. Geary in two columns, cutting off his retreat, and then seizing this formidable gap to intercept the progress of the reconstruction of the Manassas Gap. R. R.

The attack was to be made at daybreak this morning.  Their movements were made secretly, with the intention of making a dash, and cutting the command to pieces.  Col. Geary became apprised of their designs, and moved his command off during the night, and battled with the mountain roads, wading swamps and rivers of mud for five miles, and by daylight occupied this Gap, where he prepared for a resolute stand in the mountain defiles.  The movement was most important, frustrating a design to accomplish a victory by the destruction of a much dreaded command, thus to revive the drooping feelings of the rebels in Virginia.

The calls were beaten in the evening and the camp fires left burning as usual.  After the command marched, although in such superior force, the enemy had not the temerity to follow and attempt an entrance into the rugged defiles.  It is supposed they returned at once to their original position south of the Rappahannock.

One of the Union scouts was killed and three of the rebels were taken prisoners.  Thorof Gap is a station of the Manassas Gap Railroad, fourteen miles west of Manassas.  It is a gap in the Bull Run Mountains.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, April 8, 1862, p. 1