YORKTOWN.
The advance to Yorktown--A thunder storm--"Reliable
contrabands"--Facing the enemy--A strong position--The Union
line--A rebel welcome--Digging--On picket--A dreary country--An
enterprising planter--Active work--Battle of Lee's Mills--Charge
of the Vermont brigade--Progress of the siege--Ravages of
disease--A front seat--Short supplies--The rebels
withdraw--Entering the strongholds--Infernal machines--March to
Williamsburgh--Victims of disease.
At length, on the 4th of April, the army was put in motion for Yorktown.
The General-in-Chief had arrived at Fortress Monroe the evening before,
and at once the army became the scene of prodigious activity. Keyes'
corps, our own division in advance, took the road along the banks of the
James river. The rest of the army, headed by Porter's division, advanced
on the more direct road to Yorktown, through Great Bethel, accompanied
by General McClellan.
The day being clear and warm, the men soon began to realize the
difficulty of transporting large amounts of clothing and camp equipage
on their shoulders, and the roadsides were strewn with blankets and
overcoats, dress coats and pants. The bushes and trees for miles along
the route were thickly hung with articles of clothing, mostly new, and
all good. Soldiers who had put on their marching suit would fall out of
the ranks, the knapsack would quickly disgorge a new coat and pants, the
wearers would as quickly divest themselves of the soiled garments and
replace them with the new ones, the others being left on the ground.
Whenever a halt was ordered this shifting process became general.
The roads, which at first were dry and firm, were as we advanced badly
cut up, and great difficulty was experienced in getting the trains
along.
An advance of ten miles brought us in front of Young's Mills, a strongly
fortified position five or six miles from Yorktown. The corps was drawn
up in line of battle and cavalry sent to reconnoiter the position. The
works were deserted, but camp fires still blazed in them. Here we rested
for the night. At daylight next morning the advance was renewed. The
roads were even worse than the day before. Infantry could get along well
enough, but artillery and army wagons had a hard time of it. Each piece
of artillery made the road worse, until the axles dragged in a river of
mud. We passed the little village of Warwick Court House. There were
here a little brick court house, a jail and a clerk's office seven feet
by ten, a store and a tavern. There were also two small dwelling houses.
After a march of three miles the division was drawn up in line of
battle. We had reached the hostile works before the rest of the army.
Skirmishers were sent to the front and we advanced slowly and cautiously
through the woods. A terrific thunder storm burst upon us and the roar
of the heavenly artillery seemed to mock any efforts at martial
grandeur. Seldom, if ever, had we of the northern states witnessed such
an exhibition of sublimity and terrible magnificence of the workings of
the elements. The vivid lightning and terrific peals of thunder seemed
to the men the presage of deadly work to come. The advance was very
difficult, the woods being marshy and filled with tangles and briars.
The men were scratched and bleeding. The long line of battle presently
emerged from the woods and occupied a clearing, in the center of which
was a mansion, the late residence of a rebel officer. Some scouts
brought from the house a couple of negresses whom they led to General
Keyes. They communicated their information with an earnestness that
proved their sympathies were not with their late master. It was a
picturesque scene; those tall negresses with their bright red turbans
and long white woolen gowns, telling with earnest gestures what they
knew of the position of the enemy, while the generals and their staffs
listened eagerly to their words. They said that when we passed over the
little hill just in front, we should be under fire from the batteries of
the rebels, who were in large force; "but laws a massa, noting like all
dese yer," said they, pointing to the troops of our division.
Cautiously the clearing was crossed, the long line of battle moving in
beautiful order--Kennedy's, Ayres' and Wheeler's batteries each
accompanying a brigade.
Again we entered a heavy pine wood in which the swamp was deeper than
ever, and advancing through it we came face to face with the enemy.
Warwick creek, a marshy stream which had been dammed by the rebels,
raising its waters into ponds and deep morasses, was between us and
their works, and the accessible points were guarded by artillery. Two
regiments were at once deployed as skirmishers and sent in advance, and
our batteries were planted along the edge of the wood with the line of
the infantry. Only Smith's division was in line, the others were waiting
on the road for orders to come up.
Along the road, for more than half the distance back to Young's Mills,
the brigades of Couch's and Kearney's divisions were resting on their
arms, while cannon by scores waited to be called into action.
The enemy was not slow to acknowledge our presence, and as a token of
greeting sent some twelve-pound shells crashing among the trees about
us. The firing now became brisk on our side, and the rebels replied
spiritedly with their twelve-pounders. Hundreds of men were now called
up from the rear brigades and detailed to build corduroy roads. Trees
were cut down and trimmed of their branches, and laid side by side so as
to form a kind of bridge over the swamp to enable more artillery to come
up. The rapidity with which such roads were built was marvelous.
By this time the column on the right had reached the works in front of
the town. The position here was also strong. Although the Warwick did
not interpose, yet high bluffs, crowned with redoubts in which were
mounted heavy guns, frowned upon the assailants. Thus far it appears
that the leaders of our army had been totally ignorant of the position
and strength of the enemy, and had led it up to the works, blindly
feeling the way without maps or guides. (McClellan's Report.) The
defensive works were now found to consist of a series of redoubts and
rifle pits stretching across the Peninsula, seven miles in extent, with
high bluffs on the right and Warwick creek in their front on the left.
The position occupied by our division was known as Lee's Mills, and to
our right, nearly three miles, was the village of Yorktown. The line of
battle was now arranged in the following order from right to left:
Heintzelman's corps, consisting of Porter's, Hooker's and Hamilton's
divisions, were in front of the town; Sedgwick's division of Sumner's
corps on the left of them, and Keyes' corps, comprising Smith's and
Couch's division (Casey's division arrived in a few days), held the
position on the Warwick at Lee's Mills.
The position of the enemy was, without doubt, one of great strength, and
everything had been done to render it more formidable. Yet they were by
no means too strong or sufficiently well garrisoned to resist an assault
from such a body of men as now appeared in their front. That there were
weak points in this line of defenses, stretching seven miles, was
afterwards demonstrated; and that the forces behind the works were by no
means sufficiently numerous, at the time of our approach, to afford
formidable resistance at all points in their extensive line, is now well
known.
It appears from the official report of the rebel General Johnston, who
then commanded all the rebel forces in Virginia, that at the time of the
appearance of our army before Yorktown the works were defended by only
about eleven thousand men, and that even after he had reinforced the
garrisons by the troops which he was hurrying from Manassas, his army
amounted to only fifty thousand men.
The artillery duel was kept up until night. We had lost some men during
the day, but not so many as we had feared. First a poor fellow from the
Seventh Maine, his heart and left lung torn out by a shell; then one
from the Forty-ninth New York, shot in the head; the next was from our
own regiment, Frank Jeffords, who had to suffer amputation of a leg;
then a man from the Forty-ninth was sent to the rear with his heel
crushed. In all, our loss did not exceed twenty men. The casualties in
the other brigades were less than in our own.
As night approached, the firing gradually ceased, and nothing but the
scattering shots of the skirmishers was heard. We lay down in the swamp
with no tents, and many of us without food. Officers and men built
platforms of logs and bark to keep out of the water where they were not
fortunate enough to find a dry place. General Smith bivouacked near the
line of battle, making his bed at the foot of a pine tree, with nothing
but his overcoat for shelter. It may not be amiss to say here that
General Smith, unlike most gentlemen with stars on their shoulders, was
always in the habit of sleeping at the very front.
All the following day, and the next, the firing was kept up steadily on
both sides. At night showers of cannister and grape would fall in our
camp, and fortunate was he who had a good tree or stump between him and
the rebel works against which to lay his head while he slept.
We at length became so accustomed to the continual skirmishing, that
unless the firing was in fierce volleys we took no notice of it. The
boys of the Thirty-third New York being on the skirmish line on the 8th,
charged a rifle pit with shouts and hurrahs, and drove the rebels from
it. An attempt was made to retake it, but the boys held their ground.
The men performed herculean labors on the roads, and in throwing up
earthworks. No rest was allowed. When not on picket they were cutting
down trees or throwing up earthworks or building bridges. Such constant
labor soon began to exhaust the strength of the stoutest, and hundreds
of them yielded to disease who supposed themselves capable of enduring
any amount of hardships. Yet there was now and then a grimly gay episode
in this hard routine. Here is an incident that occurred two or three
days after we approached the works, and affords a good sample of
picketing between us and the forts. Our pickets were within speaking
distance of those of the enemy; each party kept, if possible, snugly
behind some big stump or tree, out of the reach of his disagreeable
neighbors. A good deal of hard talk had passed between one of our
pickets and one of the "Johnnies." Finally the rebel thrust his hand
beyond his tree holding in it a bottle, and shaking it, challenged the
Yankee to come and take it--"_crack_" went the Yankee's rifle at the
hand. "Ha, ha! why don't you hit it? What do you think of Bull Run?"
"How do you like Fort Donelson?" responded the Yankee.
While this colloquy was going on, Yankee number two crept round behind a
log, and drawing on the southerner, blazed away at him. The son of
chivalry clapped his hand to his shoulder and ran off howling. "There,
you fool," shouted Yankee number one, "I told you that blind man would
be shooting you pretty soon."
The country about us was uncultivated and unhealthy. The lands were low
and swampy, and mostly covered with a heavy growth of yellow pines. The
few remaining inhabitants were mostly women, negresses and children; now
and then a disabled specimen of poor white trash, or a farmer too infirm
to be of service in the rebel army, was to be met with. All were alike
destitute of enterprise, and the houses upon the "plantations" were of
the meanest order, raised three or four feet above the ground upon posts
without the usual foundation of stone. The "plantations" consisted
usually of about ten or twenty acres of cleared land in the midst of the
forest, with narrow roads among the pines leading to neighboring
plantations.
The writer inquired of the proprietor of one of these isolated spots,
who also had some forty negro women and children, how he managed to
support so large a family from the proceeds of so little land. "Well,"
said he, "I could not support them from the proceeds of the land alone,
but you see I sell a few negroes every year and buy corn with the money;
so with what we raise and what we get for the sale of the negroes, we
get along very well."
"But why do you not cut down some of this forest and till more land? You
own a large tract of land which is entirely worthless as it now is."
"There is where you are greatly mistaken, said the enterprising
southerner, my timber land is my best property." But of what use do you
make it? "Oh, I sell a great deal of wood. I take it to Fortress Monroe
and Hampton and get two dollars and a half a cord for it!"
The reader will perhaps understand the profits drawn from the wood
lands, when it is remembered that Fortress Monroe was twenty miles
distant.
Night attacks by the enemy became common; and it was not an unfrequent
occurrence for the whole division to be called suddenly to arms at
midnight and stand in line until morning. Skirmishes and sharpshooting
continued with little intermission; bullets of rebel riflemen whizzing
through our camps or unceremoniously entering our tents at all times.
Rebel gunboats approached the mouth of the Warwick and by their
assistance the rebel infantry attempted to turn our left flank, but the
troops of our division gallantly met their attack and drove them back.
This state of affairs continued until the 16th of April. That morning,
word passed through the division that we were to make an assault. Orders
came to move, and the division was massed near some ruins, known as "The
Chimneys," in front of one of the rebel forts; the Second brigade
holding the front line, supported by the First and Third brigades. As we
moved round to take our positions, an American eagle whirled above our
heads in elegant circles and at length floated away toward the south,
the boys swinging their hats and cheering the bird with loud huzzahs.
[Illustration: CHARGE OF THE VERMONTERS AT LEE'S MILLS.]
The fort in our front covered the road from Newport News to
Williamsburgh, and could we get possession of it we could turn the
flanks of the enemy, obliging him to abandon his position and enabling
us either to prevent his escape or to harass him in his flight. In front
of the fort the creek had been dammed and a deep morass interposed
between us and the works. General McClellan and his immense suite rode
to the point from which the attack was to be made, and communicating a
few minutes with Generals Keyes and Smith, left the field. Mott's
battery was now brought into position on the open plateau and opened a
fierce cannonade, to which the rebels replied with spirit, dismounting
one of our guns and killing several of the gunners at the very start.
Mott was reinforced by Kennedy's and Wheeler's batteries, and the
hostile guns were soon silenced. Our batteries then advanced within five
hundred yards of the fort, and the gray-coated rebels who were seen to
fill the woods, were soon dispersed. Two companies of troops, from the
Third Vermont, were now ordered forward. Down from the woods they came,
rushed into the water to their waists, and gallantly made for the rebel
rifle pits. The first line of the works was gained and then the second.
The fort was empty, but a ditch to their left was filled with men. They
poured a volley among them and the gray coats fled. Thus the fort was
actually in their possession, and was held for some minutes by the noble
fellows, but when they looked for support, none came. The three brigades
stood upon the opposite bank, ready to plunge through the stream, and
waiting with intense anxiety for the order, "forward;" but no order
came, and the brave Green Mountain boys who had so nobly performed their
part of the work, were forced to fall back under a galling fire from the
rebels, who rushed back to their pits as soon the Vermonters had left
them, pouring volley after volley into the retreating forces, who, their
ammunition spent, could not reply to the rebel fire. Before they were
able to reach the shelter of the woods, sad havoc was made in their
ranks. Skirmishing was kept up for some hours, by other regiments, but
with no result except the loss of men.
The following list of killed and wounded was obtained the next day after
the battle:
2d Vermont--1 killed.
3d Vermont--24 killed, 7 mortally wounded, 56 wounded,
1 missing.
4th Vermont--3 killed, 30 wounded.
5th Vermont--2 killed, 6 wounded.
6th Vermont--11 killed, 77 wounded.
Total loss to the brigade, 218.
Thus ended the fight known as the "Battle of Lee's Mills," a battle in
which two hundred men gallantly captured an important work of the enemy,
and thousands of their companions burning with desire to share in their
glory stood by and saw them abandon it! Why the other brigades were not
ordered forward has never been explained satisfactorily. That General
Smith would gladly have sent them forward we earnestly believe; but we
now know that General McClellan desired that a general engagement should
not be brought on at that time.
The wounded men exhibited the same bravery, while their wounds were
being cared for, that characterized their brilliant charge. Men badly
mutilated, with bullets in their heads, or breasts, or limbs, refused to
receive attention from the surgeon who dressed their wounds, until their
more unfortunate companions were cared for. "Don't mind me, doctor,
there are others hurt worse than I am," said many a brave fellow, as he
lay upon the ground bleeding from his wounds.
The following incident connected with this noble charge will be
remembered by all who were at that time members of Smith's division, and
by hundreds who saw accounts of it in the newspapers of the day:
Private William Scott, of Company K, Third Vermont, was, in the autumn
of 1861, found asleep at his post on the picket line. It was a grave
fault; but the weary soldier, inexperienced in the service, and
unaccustomed to such night vigils, in an evil hour yielded to the
demands of tired nature, little thinking that the lives of hundreds of
his comrades were periled by his unfaithfulness. He was tried by a
court-martial and sentenced to be shot. The sentence was approved, and
at the appointed time he was brought forth to execution. General Smith,
desiring to impress upon the minds of his men the terrible consequences
of such an offense, formed his troops in line. The culprit was brought
out before them, and led to the place of execution. The guard, with
loaded muskets, stood ready to execute the dreadful sentence, which was
read before all the troops. All waited in breathless expectation for the
order to fire; but instead another paper was read. It was a pardon from
the President! Then the wildest shouts of joy ran along the line. Shout
after shout arose from the division, and hundreds blessed the name of
President Lincoln.
There were many circumstances to render this a case of peculiar
interest. It was the first sentence of the kind; it was at the beginning
of the war, when a soldier's life was regarded of value, and when all
eyes were riveted upon the army, and every incident was of interest. It
was also the first instance of the kind in which the executive clemency
had been exercised. So near had the hour of execution arrived when the
President signed the pardon, that, fearing it might not be received in
season, he took his carriage and drove to camp, to assure himself that
the man's life should be spared.
"I will show President Lincoln that I am not afraid to die for my
country," said the grateful soldier; and well did he fulfill his
promise. Among the bravest of those two hundred heroes who crossed the
swamp at Lee's Mills, was William Scott, of Company K, Third Vermont.
But he was brought back a corpse. He had shown the President that he was
not afraid to die for his country. He was one of the foremost in the
charge, and one of the first to fall. His comrades made his grave under
the shadow of the tall pines, and as they folded his blanket around him,
and lowered him to his resting place, tears stood upon those brown
cheeks; but the tears of sorrow were mingled with tears of joy, when
they thought of his glorious death, and his narrow escape from an
ignominious fate, and again, in their hearts, they blessed the man who
was always the soldier's friend.
We resumed our place the next day after the battle, on the front line,
and commenced digging.
Fierce night sorties were again made by the enemy and bravely resisted
by our boys, who continued the work regardless of these annoyances. Only
one fight occurred on our part of the line after the 16th, in which we
lost any number of men. On the 28th the First brigade had a skirmish in
which we lost one killed and half a dozen wounded. Among the latter was
Lieutenant, afterward Colonel Milliken, of the Forty-third New York. A
reconnoissance on the left about the same time, resulted in finding the
rebels in considerable force, and a loss of two good soldiers to the
Seventy-seventh New York. In the meantime earthworks of great strength
were being thrown up on the right of the line before Yorktown, and
everything was being put in a complete state of preparation for the
grand bombardment. Enormous siege guns of one hundred and even two
hundred pound calibre, and immense mortars were brought up and mounted
in the earthworks, and it was thought that with the powerful means we
were using the fall of Yorktown was only a question of time.
Our losses by the rebels before Yorktown were not great, but the ravages
by disease were fearful. Many thousands of noble fellows who would
gladly have braved the dangers of the battle-field, were carried to the
rear with fevers engendered by the deadly malaria of the swamps, from
which few ever recovered sufficiently to rejoin the ranks; and thousands
of others were laid in humble graves along the marshy borders of the
Warwick or about the hospitals at Young's Mills. For a month the men
were almost continually under arms; often called in the middle of the
night to resist the attempts of the enemy to force our line under cover
of the thick darkness, standing in line of battle day after day and
digging at earthworks night after night.
During the thirty days of the siege we had twenty days of rain. Thunder
storms followed each other in quick succession, with lightnings more
vivid than we had ever seen at the north. Men lay down to rest at night
with their equipments buckled about them and wet to their skins. Men
unaccustomed to the hardships of campaigning could not endure such
exposure.
A few divisions of the army performed by far the greater part of the
labor, either because they had at first reached positions which imposed
greater toil, or because greater confidence was reposed in them. Our own
division was one of those upon which the duties imposed were too great
for men to perform; yet the men would have resented being sent to the
rear, and it was said that General Smith remarked that "he had spoken
for a front seat for his boys and he intended to keep it."
Added to all the exposures and hardships of the siege, there was a
deplorable want of proper commissary and medical supplies. While the men
were supplied with fair rations of hard bread, vegetables were unknown
among us, and the supply of fresh meat wholly inadequate. In the Medical
Department the greatest difficulty was experienced in obtaining
supplies, and indeed it was impossible to get them. Not that regimental
surgeons did not use their utmost endeavor to procure them, but as
brigade and regimental commissaries could not obtain supplies of food
which were not furnished to the army at all, so surgeons could not
procure medicines and other necessaries which were locked in the
storehouses in Washington. This subject will be more fully alluded to in
another place, and it is to be hoped that the responsibility of this
criminal negligence to supply the army with medical and hospital stores
may fall where it belongs.
Thus, with their minds wrought up to a continual state of excitement,
with constant exposure to tempests and malaria, with excessive and
exhausting labors, and with improper food and scarcity of medicine,
sickness and death swept over us like a pestilence.
At length, after a month of toil and exposure almost unprecedented,
after losing nearly one-fifth of our magnificent army by disease and
death, our batteries were finished, the enormous siege guns were
mounted, and the thirteen inch mortars in position. The army looked
anxiously for the grand _finale_ of all these extensive preparations.
Men had lost the enthusiasm which prevailed when we landed upon the
Peninsula, and a smile was seldom seen; but a fixed and determined
purpose to succeed still appeared in their faces. Now at length we were
ready; and the countenances of the soldiers began to lighten up a
little. But as the sun rose on the morning of the 4th of May, behold,
the rebels had vanished, and with them our hopes of a brilliant victory!
Unfortunately for our hopes of a great success at Yorktown, the rebel
generals had shown themselves unwilling to afford us such an opportunity
by waiting for us longer; and during the night of the 3d and 4th they
had evacuated the place.
They had gained a month of time for strengthening the defenses about
Richmond, and for concentrating their forces there. Now they were ready
to fall back without testing our magnificent works and huge guns, and
lead us into the swamps of Chickahominy; where they hoped that the fever
would complete the ghastly work already commenced at Yorktown.
During the night of the evacuation, the roar of artillery exceeded
anything that had been heard before. From one end of the line to the
other the shells and shot poured into our camps, and the arches of fire
that marked the courses of the shells, with flame spouting from the
mouths of the guns, created a magnificent pyrotechnic display. But at
daylight, orderlies flew from regiment to regiment with the startling
intelligence that the beleaguered works were deserted, and with orders
to occupy them at once. Smith's division hastened to cross over the dam,
and we found ourselves in the strongholds that we had so long invested.
As the Seventy-seventh regiment passed along one of the roads leading
among the intrenchments, a sharp report like that of a pistol was heard
at the feet of those in the center of the column, and directly under the
colors. The men scattered, and a piece of old cloth was seen lying on
the ground at the point from which the report emanated. Colonel McKean,
who was very near, lifted the cloth with the point of his sword, and
discovered a torpedo carefully buried in the ground, except a nipple
which had been filled with fulminating powder, which was covered by the
old cloth. The fuse only had exploded. Had the machine itself exploded,
it must have destroyed many of our men, our colonel among them. Other
regiments were not so fortunate as we were. Very many men were killed in
the streets and intrenchments by these torpedoes, which the enemy had
planted in the street at either end of the bridges, about springs, and
near the deserted guns. They were concealed beneath the ground with
great care, the capped nipple only rising above the surface, and this,
covered by an old rag or piece of bark thrown over it, exploded at the
slightest touch. These infernal machines were only one feature of the
general plan of our enemies to carry on a war by brutal, savage and
cowardly means. The starving of prisoners at Andersonville and
Salisbury, and the wholesale butchery at Fort Pillow, were other parts
of the same savage plan which was crowned by the fearful tragedy at
Ford's Theatre.
We made little delay among the rebel intrenchments; only long enough to
glance over the formidable works, where the enemy had abandoned
seventy-two pieces of artillery, mostly of heavy caliber, with immense
numbers of shovels, picks, wheelbarrows and other paraphernalia of an
army.
The division was at nine o'clock sent forward on the road toward
Williamsburgh; encountering, before it had proceeded far, a portion of
the rear-guard of the confederate army, which hastily fell back before
our advance. General Smith informed the Commander-in-Chief of the
encounter, who ordered Stoneman, with a regiment of cavalry, to give
chase to the retiring body, and, if possible, cut it off; but,
unfortunately, either from want of proper information in regard to the
roads, or from other hindrances, this was not effected. The division
pushed on over the road lately traversed by the rebels, the men
overcoming all obstacles that had been thrown in their way, in their
anxiety to overtake the foe.
The scenery, as the troops passed, was indeed charming beyond
description. Magnificent forests of oak and pine, interspersed with
clearings, the residences of farmers, with fine fields, covered with the
green blades of the newly springing wheat, met the view along the road;
while the woods were adorned with innumerable flowers. The tall dogwood,
with its clusters of large flowers like swarms of white butterflies,
mingled with the Judas tree, whose leafless boughs were densely covered
with racemes of purple blossoms. The azalia and the honeysuckle beneath
formed a delightful contrast with the gorgeous floral display above.
Thus the division was hurried on, until at evening it came upon the
rebel works at Williamsburgh. As our forces approached Williamsburgh,
the cavalry came upon the enemy, and a sharp skirmish ensued, in which
we lost about fifty in killed and wounded, and the rebels left as many
on the field. The charge was made by the Sixth cavalry and Gibbon's
battery, driving the rebels back. They, in their turn, being reinforced,
forced our troops back; one of our guns, from which all the horses were
shot, being abandoned. Each party strove hard for the possession of the
gun, but night closed upon the contest, leaving it in possession of
neither. In the meantime, the men of our division too sick to march were
being cared for by our medical officers. Hundreds of the men of our
division lay sick with typhoid fever and other equally dangerous
maladies. These were all taken to the hospital which had been commenced
a day or two previous, about a mile and a half from our camp. The whole
day was occupied in removing these men. Of those sent to this hospital,
as of the many previously sent to the hospital at Young's Mills and
Fortress Monroe, few ever returned.