THE SIEGE OF YORKTOWN.
The Rebel army suddenly evacuated Centreville, Manassas, and the line
of the Potomac, carrying off everything of value. The Army of the
Potomac moved on the 9th of March to Manassas, beheld the deserted
encampments, returned to Alexandria, and sailed for Fortress Monroe.
General McClellan decided to advance upon Richmond by the Peninsula,
between the York and James Rivers. General McDowell, with McCall's and
King's divisions, was stationed at Fredericksburg, to cover Washington.
Blenker's division was detached from Sumner's Corps, and sent to the
Shenandoah Valley. All the other divisions sailed down the Chesapeake.
The troops landed at Newport News and went into camp.
The Rebel General Magruder occupied Yorktown. He was fortifying it and
the Peninsula, erecting batteries to command York River, and to cover
the approaches by land. The iron-clad Merrimack, with the Teazer and
Jamestown gunboats, were in the James River. Admiral Goldsborough, with
the Monitor, the Minnesota, and several gunboats, was watching them,
and guarding the shipping at Fortress Monroe.
General McClellan submitted his plans to the President. He had two
methods of operation in view;--one, to attack Magruder's works, between
the York and the James, which might require siege operations, and a
delay of many weeks; the other, to obtain aid from the navy, attack
the water-batteries at Yorktown, silence them, and then go up the York
River with his army, sailing to West Point, within twenty-five miles
of Richmond. Admiral Goldsborough could not spare gunboats enough to
attack the batteries, and therefore General McClellan adopted the other
plan.[6]
[Footnote 6: General McClellan's Report, p. 66.]
On the evening of April 3d the army received orders to march the next
morning.
It was a beautiful night. The sky was cloudless. A new moon shed its
silver light upon the vast encampment. The soldiers had been waiting
two weeks. They were one hundred thousand strong, while the Rebel force
did not number more than ten or twelve thousand.[7]
[Footnote 7: General Heintzelman's testimony.]
They expected to move to victory. They sang songs, wrote letters to
their friends, burnished their guns, heaped the fires with fresh fuel,
and rejoiced that after so many months of waiting they were to be
active.
There were some who had a true appreciation of the work before them,
and realized that they might fall in the hour of battle.
One who had fought at Bull Run, whose heart was in the great cause,
prepared his last will and testament. At the close of it he wrote:--
"And now, having arranged for the disposition of my worldly estate, I
will say that, possessing a full confidence in the Christian religion,
and believing in the righteousness of the cause in which I am engaged,
I am ready to offer my poor life in vindication of that cause, and in
sustaining a government the mildest and most beneficent the world has
ever known."[8]
[Footnote 8: Maine Adjutant-General's Report, 1862, p. 142. Captain
B. M. Smith.]
At three o'clock in the morning the soldiers were astir, roused by
the drum-beat and the bugle. The fading fires were rekindled. Their
coffee was soon bubbling on the coals. Before daylight they had their
knapsacks packed, their tents taken down, and all things ready for the
march. By sunrise they were on the road, General Heintzelman's corps
leading the column. The roads were deep with mud, and the marching was
heavy, but so enthusiastic were the soldiers that by ten o'clock the
head of the column encountered the enemy's pickets in front of Yorktown.
Both armies were upon historic ground. It was at Yorktown that the
British army under Lord Cornwallis laid down its arms in 1781. It
was a flourishing village then. There were fine mansions, surrounded
with shrubbery, shaded by old oaks and lindens. Virginia in those
days had many wealthy families. The Peninsula was the first settled
territory in America, and many of the planters had immense estates.
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence resided at
Yorktown,--Governor Nelson. His house is yet standing,--a large
two-story brick building, which General Magruder occupied for his
head-quarters. It bears the marks of shot which were fired by the
Americans during the siege in 1781. Governor Nelson commanded the
Virginia militia then. He was a noble patriot, and aimed the cannon
himself at his own house to drive out the British who had possession of
it.
Cornwallis had a line of earthworks around Yorktown, and those which
Magruder erected were on pretty much the same line, only Magruder's,
besides encircling the town, also reached across the Peninsula. The
English general had between seven and eight thousand men. General
Washington and Count Rochambeau had about fifteen thousand. They were
large armies for those days, but very small when compared with that
commanded by General McClellan.
It was a long march which the French and American troops made to reach
Yorktown. They marched from New York, in July, through Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Annapolis, Mount Vernon, and Williamsburg. They had no
transports to take them down the Chesapeake, besides, there was an
English fleet in the bay which might have captured the entire army had
it moved by water.
In the American army were officers whose names are inseparably
connected with the history of our country,--General Knox, Baron
Steuben, Lafayette, General Clinton, General Lincoln, Colonel Scammell,
the brave New Hampshire officer who was shot by a Hessian soldier. In
the French army were Count Rochambeau, Marquis St. Simon, and Baron
Viomeil. In the bay floated the English ships of war, and outside, near
Cape Henry, was the Count de Grasse, with his formidable fleet.
On Sunday morning, the 13th of October, the place was completely
invested. The Americans of the allied army moved down the road leading
to Hampton, and swung round by Wormley Creek. General Lincoln
commanded the right wing, and had his head-quarters near the creek.
Lafayette, with his light infantry, and Governor Nelson, with the
Virginia militia, were on the north side of the Hampton road, while
south of it were the New England and New Jersey and New York troops,
under General Clinton. They held the center of the American line. The
left wing of the Americans, on Warwick River, was composed of Maryland
and Pennsylvania troops, under Baron Steuben. On the west side of the
Warwick were Washington's and Rochambeau's head-quarters, on the south
side of the road. The French troops held the ground from this point to
York River west of the town.
Lord Cornwallis capitulated on the 16th of October. On the 17th his
fine army marched out from the town along the Hampton road about a mile
to a field, where the soldiers laid down their arms. The American army
was drawn up on the north side of the road and the French on the south
side,--two long lines of troops. The British army marched between them,
the drums beating a slow march, and the colors which had waved proudly
on so many battle-fields closely encased. It was a sorrowful march to
the British soldiers. Some of them cried with vexation, and drew their
caps over their faces to hide their tears. Lord Cornwallis felt the
humiliation so deeply that he delegated General O'Hara to surrender up
his sword.
It was an imposing scene. Washington and all the generals of the army,
with their suits, in rich uniforms and on fine horses, the long lines
of soldiers, the colors waving in the breeze, the British army in its
scarlet uniforms, the crowd of spectators from the country who had
heard of the news, and had hastened to see the surrender, made it one
of the grandest sights ever seen in America.
On such ground, hallowed by noble deeds, the troops of the Union, as
their fathers had done before them, were to carry on the siege of
Yorktown.
The Rebels also undoubtedly felt the influence of those stirring times
of the Revolution. They believed that they were fighting for their
liberty, and were engaged in a just war. But sincerity is not certain
proof of the righteousness of a cause. Chaplain Davis, of the Fourth
Texas regiment, has this vindication of the rebellion, written by the
camp-fires at Yorktown:--
"How many pleasing recollections crowd upon the mind of each soldier
as he walks over these grounds, or sitting thoughtfully by his fagots,
recalls the history of the past, and compares it with the scenes of the
present. The patriots of the Revolution were struggling for liberty,
and so are we. They had been oppressed with burdensome taxation,--so
were we. They remonstrated,--so did we. They submitted till submission
ceased to be a virtue,--and so have we. They appealed to Parliament,
but were unheard. Our Representatives in Congress pointed to the
maelstrom to which they were driving the ship, but they refused to
see it. Our fathers asked for equalities of rights and privileges,
but it was refused. The South asked that their claim to territory won
by the common blood and treasure of the country be recognized, and
that our domestic institutions, as guaranteed by the Constitution,
be respected. These petitions were answered by professed ministers of
the Church of Jesus Christ in raising contributions from the sacred
pulpit on the holy Sabbath of Sharpe's Rifles, to shed Southern blood
on common territory. Their Representatives declared, upon the floors
of Congress, that they were in favor of 'An Antislavery Constitution,
an Antislavery Bible, and an Antislavery God!' What is now left us?
Naught but the refuge our fathers had,--the God of Justice and the God
of Battles. To him have we appealed, and by his aid and our good right
arms we will pass through the ordeal of blood and come out conquerors
in the end."[9]
[Footnote 9: Campaign from Texas to Maryland, by Rev. Nicholas A.
Davis, Chaplain Fourth Texas. Richmond, 1863.]
Many thousands of the Union soldiers were thinking, reflecting men.
There were ministers, professors in colleges, school-teachers, and
learned and scientific men. Few there were who could not read and
write. Thousands of them had been teachers and scholars in the Sunday
schools. They had thought the war all over, and discussed the causes
which led to it. They were familiar with the history of events,--of the
struggle between Slavery and Freedom; for the possession of Kansas,
where men and women were driven out, their buildings burned, or
themselves thrown into rivers, or deliberately murdered, for preferring
freedom to slavery. They recalled the attempt to compel the people of
the North to return the slaves who were escaping to Canada,--also the
kidnapping of free citizens of the North; the imprisonment of men and
women for teaching a slave to read the Bible. They remembered that a
Northern man could not travel with safety in the South before the war,
that Slavery was opposed always to Freedom, that the system crushed
the poor laboring men without distinction of color, race, or clime or
country; that it was overbearing, imperious, aristocratic, arrogant,
and cruel; that it kept the people from obtaining knowledge; that it
was the foe of industry, the enemy of science, art, and religion.
They remembered the words of Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, the
Vice-President of the Confederacy, who in the beginning opposed
secession; who said to his associates in the convention which carried
his State out of the Union:--
"It is the best and freest government, the most equal in its rights,
the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and
the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of man that
the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now for you to attempt to overthrow
such a government as this, unassailed, is the height of madness, folly,
and wickedness."[10]
[Footnote 10: Stephens's speech.]
They remembered that Mr. Stephens asked those who were plotting treason
these questions: "What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth
to justify it? They will be calm and deliberate judges in the case;
and to what law, to what one overt act, can you point on which to rest
the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What
interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied,
or what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can any
of you name one governmental act of wrong deliberately and purposely
done by the government at Washington of which the South had a right to
complain? I challenge the answer."
They remembered that the Secretary of War under President Buchanan, Mr.
Floyd of Virginia, had removed all the arms from the Northern arsenals
to the South, that the slaveholders might be well prepared for war, and
ready to seize the city of Washington.
They remembered that Mr. Toucey of Connecticut, who was President
Buchanan's Secretary of the Navy, had sent nearly all the ships of
war into foreign seas, that they might not be at hand in the hour of
rebellion, when the government should pass into new hands, and that
the Secretary of the Treasury stole millions of dollars of public
funds intrusted to his care. They reflected that all of these men had
forsworn themselves, that they were traitors and robbers, that they had
deliberately, through years of power, planned to rebel, to destroy the
government, and bring ruin upon the people if they could not have their
way. They believed that without cause the Rebels had fired upon the
flag, and inaugurated the war, and that to defend the flag and restore
the Union, by crushing out the rebellion, was a duty they owed to
their country and to God. They recalled the words of Thomas Jefferson,
uttered long ago, in his notes on Virginia, who said, in view of the
complicity of the South with slavery:--
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his
justice cannot sleep forever. The Almighty has no attribute that can
take side with us in such a contest."[11]
[Footnote 11: Notes on Virginia.]
Those thinking men remembered the words of the great man who wrote
the Declaration of Independence, and they also remembered that the
oppressed and down-trodden of all lands were looking to America,--to
the principles of the government of the United States,--as their hope
for the future. They did not forget their homes on the breezy hills
of the North and in the sunny valleys, nor the church-bell, nor the
school-house, and other things dearer to them than life. They must
fight to maintain them. Their liberties were assailed. They could not
falter in such a contest.
So they reflected as they sat by their camp-fires in the starry night,
or lay upon the ground where their fathers achieved the last great
victory which secured their independence.
The corps commanded by General Heintzelman, when it came into position
before Yorktown, stood upon the ground which General Lincoln had
occupied in the siege of 1781. General Sumner's corps had the center,
and occupied the ground which Baron Steuben and General Clinton held
in that siege. General Keyes's corps came to the Warwick River, at
Lee's Mills, almost opposite the spot where General Washington had his
head-quarters, while General Franklin was held in reserve to move up
York River on transports when the enemy was driven from Yorktown.
General Heintzelman arrived in front of the works, and was greeted with
shells from Magruder's batteries. While the cannon were booming on
that afternoon of the 4th, the following brief telegram was sent over
the wires from Washington to Fortress Monroe:--
"By direction of the President, General McDowell's army corps has been
detached from the force under your immediate command, and the General
is ordered to report to the Secretary of War."
General McClellan received it on the 5th. He remarks:--
"To me the blow was most discouraging. It frustrated all my plans
for impending operations. It fell when I was too deeply committed to
withdraw. It left me incapable of continuing operations which had been
begun. It compelled the adoption of another, a different, and a less
effective plan of campaign. It made rapid and brilliant operations
impossible. It was a fatal error. It was now of course out of my power
to turn Yorktown by West Point. I had therefore no choice left but
to attack it directly in front as I best could with the force at my
command."[12]
[Footnote 12: McClellan's Report, p. 79.]
This brief despatch will demand the patient consideration of historians
in the future, who, when the passions and prejudices of men have passed
away, calmly and dispassionately review the causes of the failure of
the Peninsular campaign. On one hand, it is alleged to have been the
fatal error; that it was an unwarrantable interference, which made
it impossible for General McClellan to conduct the campaign to a
successful issue.
On the other hand, it is asked how the presence of McDowell would have
enabled him to go to West Point without the aid of the navy, which he
could not have.[13]
[Footnote 13: See page 50.]
How did it compel the adoption of another plan, inasmuch as the order
for the troops to advance and attack the works at Yorktown was issued
on the 3d, and they marched on the 4th, and were engaged with the
enemy before General McClellan received the orders? It is claimed,
therefore, that the issuing of the order was not a fatal error; that
it did not compel the adoption of another plan; that no other plan
was adopted; that it did not leave General McClellan incapable of
continuing operations already begun; that it did not deprive him of
the power of taking West Point, inasmuch as he never had had the
power; neither did it compel an attack directly in front, for that had
already begun; and that the President in making the change was only
enforcing the conditions on which he accepted the plan of a movement
to the Peninsula,--the retention of a force sufficient to cover
Washington,--which General McClellan had not complied with.
In the correspondence which passed between the President and General
McClellan, the President has this explanation and vindication of his
course:--
"My explicit directions that Washington should, by the judgment of
all commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been entirely
neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to detain McDowell. I do
not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave Banks
at Manassas Junction, but when that arrangement was broken up, and
nothing was substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied. I was
constrained to substitute something for it.
"And now allow me to ask you: Do you really think I should permit the
line from Richmond _via_ Manassas Junction to this city to be entirely
open, except what resistance could be presented by less than twenty
thousand unorganized troops? This is a question which the country will
not allow me to evade."[14]
[Footnote 14: President Lincoln's letter,--Testimony, p. 321.]
It will be interesting to see how the situation was viewed by the
commanders of the two armies on the Peninsula. General McClellan's
troops in front of the enemy, present and fit for duty, numbered one
hundred thousand strong.[15] He asked for reinforcements. He wrote thus
to the Secretary of War:--
[Footnote 15: Adjutant-General's Report,--Testimony, p. 315.]
"It seems clear that I shall have the whole force of the enemy on my
hands, probably not less than one hundred thousand men, and probably
more. In consequence of the loss of Blenker's division and the First
Corps (McDowell's), my force is possibly less than that of the enemy,
while they have the advantage of position."[16]
[Footnote 16: McClellan's Report, p. 79.]
"I was compelled," says General Magruder, "to place in Gloucester
Point, Yorktown, and Mulberry Island, fixed garrisons, amounting to six
thousand men, my whole force being eleven thousand; so that it will
be seen that the balance of the line, embracing a length of thirteen
miles, was defended by about five thousand men. On the 5th of April
the enemy's columns appeared along the whole front of my line. I have
no accurate data upon which to base an exact statement of his force;
but, from various sources of information, I was satisfied that I had
before me the enemy's Army of the Potomac, with the exception of the
two _corps d'armée_ of Banks and McDowell, forming an aggregate number
certainly of not less than one hundred thousand, since ascertained to
have been one hundred and twenty thousand.... Thus with five thousand
men, exclusive of the garrisons, we stopped and held in check over
one hundred thousand of the enemy. Every preparation was made in
anticipation of another attack. The men slept in the trenches and under
arms, but to my utter surprise he permitted day after day to elapse
without an assault."[17]
[Footnote 17: Confederate Reports, Official, p. 516.]
Siege operations commenced,--spades, picks, and shovels were given to
the troops, and they began to throw up the breastworks. It was a slow,
tedious, laborious undertaking. The mud was very deep, the ground
soft, and it rained nearly every day. The woods were very dense. There
were new roads made. The brooks were bridged. Some of the soldiers
made gabions, or baskets of wicker-work, for the batteries. The teams
floundered through the mud axle-deep. Thousands of horses gave out from
sheer exhaustion. When the breastworks were ready, the heavy guns,
their carriages, and the ammunition had to be hauled.
It was almost impossible to accomplish the work. The horses could not
do it, and regiments of men were detailed to drag the cannon through
the mud.
The soldiers worked faithfully and enthusiastically day and night,
through drenching rains, lying down to sleep in their wet garments,
upon the water-soaked ground. Fever made its appearance, and thousands
were sent to the hospitals, worn down by their hard labor and exposure.
The bullets of the enemy killed very few of those noble men, but
thousands sickened and died.
While the batteries were getting ready, there was a spirited affair at
Lee's Mills on the 16th of April. General McClellan decided to make
a reconnaissance at that point, and, if everything was favorable, to
throw a portion of his force across the Warwick River, and gain a
foothold upon the western shore. There was an old field on the east
side of the stream, which was overgrown with young pines and oaks. A
line of skirmishers, under cover of a heavy artillery fire, crept down
through the pines to the edge of the stream. The Rebel battery upon the
other side answered the Union artillery with solid shot and shells.
Colonel Hyde of the Third Vermont was ordered to cover the stream
with two companies. The crossing was just below the dam, over which
the water poured in a silver sheet. The creek was swollen with rains,
but the sons of Vermont were not the men to falter. They plunged
in up to their necks. Their ammunition was soaked, but they pushed
on up the other bank, with a cheer. They were met by the Fifteenth
North Carolina. They did not stop an instant, but rushed upon
the Carolinians, who fled to the rear in great confusion, and the
Vermonters took possession of their rifle-pits. The commander of the
Carolinians, Colonel McVining, fell mortally wounded, also many of his
men, before the impetuous charge of the Green Mountaineers. But Rebel
reinforcements were at hand. Anderson's brigade advanced, and the
handful of men was obliged to recross the stream. The golden moment
for throwing a division across and breaking the enemy's line was lost.
Later in the day a second attempt was made by the Fourth and Fifth
Vermont regiments to cross upon the dam, but the Rebel batteries swept
it, and the attempt was not successful. The losses during the day were
about one hundred on each side.
The month of April passed before the first siege guns were ready to
open fire. Meanwhile Magruder was reinforced. On the first day of May a
heavy battery near York River began to throw shells and solid shot into
Yorktown. That night negroes came into General McClellan's lines and
reported that the Rebels were leaving Yorktown, but their story was not
believed by the General. Preparations were made to open a fire from all
the guns and mortars on the 4th of May.
General Magruder kept close watch of the operations, and when General
McClellan was ready, quietly retreated towards Williamsburg. He ordered
his artillerymen to keep up a heavy fire through the night, to spike
the guns just before daybreak, and leave the place. So through the
night there was a grand uproar of artillery along the Rebel lines. The
gunners seemed to vie with each other to see which could fire most
rapidly and throw away the most shot and shells. They took no aim, but
fired at random towards the Union lines.
At daybreak it was discovered that there was no sign of life or
motion in the Rebel camp. The guns still looked frowningly from the
fortifications, tents were standing; but the troops were all gone, and
Yorktown was deserted.
They carried off all their light artillery, nearly all their provisions
and supplies, but left fifty-two heavy guns in the intrenchments. They
planted torpedoes, and connected them with wires and cords. A Union
soldier hit his foot against a wire and an explosion followed, which
blew off his legs.
General Magruder, by showing a bold front, with eleven thousand men at
first, had held an army of a hundred thousand in check, and gained a
month of valuable time for preparations for the defense of Richmond.