Custer, the moment he found himself in Hampton’s rear, charged the led horses, wagons, and caissons found there, getting hold of a vast number of each, and also of the station itself.  The stampede and havoc wrought by Custer in Hampton’s rear compelled him to turn Rosser’s brigade in that direction, and while it attacked Custer on one side, Fitzhugh Lee’s division, which had followed Custer toward Trevillian, attacked him on the other.  There then ensued a desperate struggle for the possession of the captured property, resulting finally in its being retaken by the enemy.  Indeed, the great number of horses and vehicles could not be kept on the limited space within Custer’s line, which now formed almost a complete circle; and while he was endeavoring to remove them to a secure place they, together with Custer’s headquarters wagon and four of his caissons, fell into the hands of their original owners.

As soon as the firing told that Custer had struck the enemy’s rear, I directed Torbert to press the line in front of Merritt and Devin, aided by one brigade of Gregg’s division on their left, Gregg’s other brigade in the meantime attacking Fitzhugh Lee on the Louisa Court House road.  The effect of this was to force Hampton back, and his division was so hard pushed that a portion of it was driven pell-mell into Custer’s lines, leaving there about five hundred prisoners.  The rest of Hampton’s men did not rally till they got some distance west of Trevillian, while, in the meantime, Gregg had driven Fitzhugh Lee toward Louisa Court House so far that many miles now intervened between the two Confederate divisions, precluding their union until about noon the next day, when Fitzhugh Lee effected the junction after a circuitous march in the night.  The defeat of Hampton at the point where he had determined to resist my further advance, and his retreat westward, gave me undisturbed possession of the station; and after destroying the railroad to some extent toward Gordonsville, I went into camp.

From prisoners taken during the day, I gathered that General Hunter, instead of coming toward Charlottesville, as I had reason to expect, both from the instructions given me and the directions sent him by General Grant, was in the neighborhood of Lexington—­apparently moving on Lynchburg—­and that Breckenridge was at Gordonsville and Charlottesville.  I also heard, from the same source, that Ewell’s corps was on its way to Lynchburg, but this intelligence proved afterward to be incorrect, for these troops, commanded by General Early, did not leave Richmond till two days later.