TOLEDO TO DETROIT, 217 



the Confederates liad time to realize that we really in- 

 tended an attack, they were swept from the field, and a 

 section of a battery with which they had been opposing 

 our advance was in the possession of the young 

 general and his gallant cavalrymen. 



No soldier who saw him on that day at Brandy 

 Station ever questioned his right to a star, or all 

 the gold lace he felt inclined to wear. He at once be- 

 came a favorite in the Army of the Potomac and his 

 fame was soon heralded throughout the country. 

 After this engagement I saw Custer at Culpeper and 

 Cedar Mountain, and in the skirmishes along the 

 Rapidan during Lee's retreat from Gettysburg; later, 

 when Lee again advanced through Northern Virginia, 

 at Sulphur Springs, Newmarket, Bristoe and in the ac- 

 tion of Octobor 19, 1863, near New Baltimore, where 

 I was taken prisoner. 



The incidents which I recalled were those of war 

 but Custer's friends here gave me the incidents of 

 peace. Mr. J. M. Bulkley, who is perhaps more inti- 

 mately acquainted with the General's early life than 

 any other man in Monroe, was his old school-chum 

 and seat-mate at Stebbin's Academy. 



When this institution was broken up, and its 

 property sold, Mr. Bulkley bought the old desk at 

 which he and Custer had sat, and on which as school- 

 boys they had cut their initials. It stands in his store, 

 and in it are kept all the papers relating to the Monu- 

 ment Fund. 



Custer's next experience was in the INIonroe Semi- 

 nary, and it was while he was a student there that 

 the pretty little face of his future wife flashed into his 

 life. The story of this meeting is laughable and odd. 



