Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke, a Prussian officer on leave from the 2nd Brandenburg Dragoons, arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 24, 1862, after running the Union blockade, carrying a huge Damascus broadsword and two English pistols. Interested in the tactics and strategy of J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry, he was introduced to Stuart by Confederate Secretary of War George Randolph, became a volunteer aide, soon rose to chief of staff, and earned a reputation for bravery. On June 17, 1863, he led General Beverly Robertson’s North Carolinians in a charge against Colonel Alfred Duffie’s 1st Rhode Island Cavalry at the south end of Middleburg. On June 19, during the fight at Mt. Defiance, he was with the North Carolinians near the Old Zulla Road after charges by the 1st Maine and the 4th and 16th Pennsylvania cavalry had thrown them into disarray. As he helped steady the Tar Heels while they fell back from the woods, joined by Stuart and other staff officers, he became an obvious target and, after one bullet skimmed his leg, another struck him in the throat. Captain William Blackford and Lieutenant Frank Robertson got him from the field, and as Stuart’s cavalry retired to the next ridge at Bittersweet Farm, von Borcke was taken west to Upperville to the home of Stuart’s surgeon, Dr. Talcott Eliason, where he was stabilized, then later to Richmond. He recovered, though the bullet was not removed, but he never returned to active field service. After the war he went home, left the Prussian Army in 1867 because of his wound, retired to his castle at Giesenbrugge in East Prussia, now Poland, and was said to have flown the Confederate flag there until his death in 1895.