Battle
On June 24, Torbert's division continued to escort the wagons toward Harrison's Landing on the James as Gregg's division followed a parallel route, protecting the right flank. Torbert encountered Brig. Gen. Lunsford L. Lomax's brigade near the Charles City Court House and drove it back. At about 8 a.m., Gregg's brigade under Brig. Gen. Henry E. Davies, Jr., arrived in the vicinity of Samaria Church, at the intersection of three roads, where they found Confederate pickets. A charge by the 2nd Pennsylvania Cavalry pushed the pickets to the north and Davies's brigade entrenched to the west of the intersection. Davies took up the right flank of the line and Col. J. Irvin Gregg (General Gregg's cousin) the left.
Hampton's force approached and prepared to attack dismounted, while simultaneously entrenching. From 3 to 4 p.m., Hampton's five brigades attacked Gregg's two. The pressure was too great on the Union cavalrymen and they began to withdraw down the road to Charles City Court House, which they reached about 8 p.m. Skirmishing lasted until 10 p.m. One of the Confederates wrote, "The enemy position was a strong one. ... They fought vigorously for a while but as our boys closed in on them they fled and when they broke the mounted cavalry was order to charge which they did driving pell mell for 3 miles capturing quite a number of prisoners, they leaving their dead and wounded in our care."
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Saint Mary's Church
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—Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes 9:11.
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“Forty years after a battle it is easy for a noncombatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to have to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)