CHAP, xxvin.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865. 477 



Confederate position, which was along the White Oak 

 Koad, and was strongly fortified with entrenchments and 

 abattis. The attack was repulsed and the Federals driven 

 back to the Boydtown Road, where they rallied. 



Sheridan on the left had moved forward at the same 

 time, and the Confederates had an opportunity of 

 directing their efibrts against him. An attack was made 

 by Fitz Lee's Confederate cavalry and two infantry 

 divisions, which was repulsed. A second attack drove 

 a portion of Sheridan's cavalry to the east, and they were 

 obliged to make a detour to rejoin the command. An 

 obstinate and hotly-contested fight then took place to 

 drive Sheridan back, but his horsemen dismounted, and 

 using repeating rifles and firing from the cover of slight 

 breastworks hurriedly made of rails, defeated the enemy, 

 who, with all his cavalry and two infantry divisions, 

 made most desperate efforts to drive them back from the 

 position they had gained. "When night came on these 

 cavalry held their ground against all three arms, and sa 

 ended the first dav's action at Five Forks. 



Sir Henry Havelock, in his work on " The Three Main 

 Military Questions of the Day," from which we obtain 

 many of the foregoing details, commenting on this action, 

 makes the following remarks on the comparative merits 

 of the different systems of using horsemen : — " There is 

 no British cavalry officer of experience in war that reads 

 this but will candidly admit that under similar circum- 

 stances, commanding cavalry whose carbines only carry 

 300 or, v/ith some rifles, 600 yards, his men dressed in a 

 manner wholly unfitting them to work on foot, braced and 

 strapped down within an inch of their lives, encumbered 

 with long spurs and tripped up by jingling steel scabbards, 

 he would first have fruitlessly attempted to keep back 

 the advancing infantry by mounted skirmishers, whose 

 fire is about as effective as that of so many boys' popguns, 

 then perhaps charged repeatedly each time with great 

 loss to his men ; then finally, consoling himself with the 

 axiom that * cavalry are an offensive and not a defensive 

 arm,' he would have come to the conclusion that that 

 was no place for his troops opposed, unsupported, to all 



