Volume II Part 7 (2/2)
By the following telegram sent by me to General J. E. Johnston, commanding at Yorktown, the contents of that which I had received from him, and of which I am not now possessed, will be readily inferred:
”RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, _May 1, 1862._
”General J. E. JOHNSTON, _Yorktown, Virginia_.
”Accepting your conclusion that you must soon retire, arrangements are commenced for the abandonment of the navy-yard and removal of public property both from Norfolk and Peninsula. Your announcement to-day that you would withdraw to-morrow night takes us by surprise, and must involve enormous losses, including unfinished gunboats. Will the safety of your army allow more time?
”JEFFERSON DAVIS.”
My next step was to request the Secretary of War, General Randolph, and the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mallory, to proceed to Yorktown and Norfolk to see whether the evacuation could not be postponed, and to make all practicable arrangements to remove the machinery, material, ordnance, and supplies for future use. At the suggestion of the Secretary of War, I agreed that he should first go with the Secretary of the Navy to Norfolk and thence pa.s.s over to Yorktown.
On the next morning they left for Norfolk. General Randolph, in his testimony before a joint special committee of the Confederate Congress, said:
”A few hours after we arrived in Norfolk, an officer from General Johnston's army made his appearance, with an order for General Huger to evacuate Norfolk immediately... . As that would have involved heavy losses in stores, munitions, and arms, I took the responsibility of giving General Huger a written order to delay the evacuation until he could remove such stores, munitions, and arms as could be carried off... . Mr. Mallory was with me and gave similar instructions to the commandant of the navy yard... . The evacuation was delayed for about a week... . When the council of war met [the conference with the President heretofore referred to], it was supposed that, if the enemy a.s.saulted our army at the Warwick River line, we should defeat them; but that, if instead of a.s.saulting they made regular approaches to either flank of the line and took advantage of their great superiority of heavy artillery, the probability would be that one flank or both of the army would be uncovered, and thus the enemy, ascending the York and James Rivers in transports, could turn the flank of the army and compel it to retreat... . They made regular approaches, mounted the largest-sized guns, such as we could not compete with, and made the position of Yorktown untenable. Nearly all of our heavy rifled guns burst during the siege. The remainder of the heavy guns were in the water-batteries,” etc.
The permanent occupation of Norfolk after our army withdrew from the lower Peninsula and the enemy possessed it was so obviously impossible as not to require explanation; but, while the enemy was engaged in the pursuit of our retreating columns, it was deemed justifiable to delay the evacuation of Norfolk for the purposes indicated in the above answer of the Secretary of War. The result justified the decision.
The order for the withdrawal of the army from the line of the Warwick River on the night of the 2d of April was delayed until the next night, because, as I have been informed, some of the troops were not ready to move. Heavy cannonading, both on the night of the 2d and 3d, concealed the fact of the purpose to withdraw, and the evacuation was made so successfully, as appears by the testimony before the United States Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, that the enemy was surprised the next morning to find the lines unoccupied.
The loss of public property, as was antic.i.p.ated, was great, the steamboats expected for its transportation not having arrived before the evacuation was made. From a narrative by General Early I make the following extract:
”A very valuable part of the property so lost, and which we stood much in need of, consisted of a very large number of picks and spades, many of them entirely new. All of our heavy guns, including some recently arrived and not mounted, together with a good deal of ammunition piled up on the wharf, had to be left behind.”
The land transportation was quite deficient. General Magruder's troops had scarcely any, and others of the more recent organizations were in a like condition; as no supplies had been acc.u.mulated at Williamsburg, this want of transportation would necessarily involve want of rations in the event of delays on the retreat.
At Williamsburg, about twelve miles from Yorktown, General Magruder, as has been mentioned, had constructed a line of detached works. The largest of these, Fort Magruder, was constructed at a point a short distance beyond where the Lee's Mill and Yorktown roads united, and where the enemy in his pursuit first encountered our retiring forces, and were promptly repulsed. General Magruder, whose arduous service and long exposure on the Peninsula has been noticed, was compelled by illness to leave his division. His absence at this moment was the more to be regretted, as it appears that the positions of the redoubts he had constructed were not all known to the commanding General, and some of them being unoccupied were seized by the enemy, and held subsequently to our disadvantage. General McClellan, in his official report from ”bivouac in front of Williamsburg, May 5, 1862,”
says, ”General Hanc.o.c.k has taken two redoubts and repulsed Early's rebel brigade by a real charge of the bayonet, taking one colonel and one hundred and fifty other prisoners,” etc. As this is selected for the brilliant event in the affair before Williamsburg, I will extract fully from General Early's report:
”LYNCHBURG, June 9, 1862.
”In accordance with orders received the evening before, my brigade was in readiness to take up the line of march from its camp west of Williamsburg toward Richmond on the 5th of May... . I was directed by Major-General D. H. Hill not to move my infantry, and in a short time I was ordered by him to march back, and report with my regiments to Major-General Longstreet at Williamsburg... . Between three and four o'clock, P.M., I was ordered by General Longstreet to move to the support of Brigadier-General Anderson of his division, at or near Fort Magruder... . Before my command had proceeded far toward its destination, I received an order from General Longstreet to send him two regiments... . With the remainder of my command, being my brigade proper, I proceeded, as near as practicable, to the position designated by General Longstreet on the left and rear of Fort Magruder... . In a short time Major-General Hill arrived, and, having ascertained that the enemy had a battery in front of us, he informed me that he wished me to attack and capture the battery with my brigade, but before doing so he must see General Longstreet on the subject... . General Hill being on the right and accompanying the brigade, I placed myself on the left with the Twenty-fourth Virginia Regiment for the purpose of directing its movements, as I was satisfied from the sound of the enemy's guns that this regiment would come directly on the battery... . In an open field, in view of Fort Magruder, at the end farthest from the fort, the enemy had taken position with a battery of six pieces ... supported by a brigade of infantry under the command of Brigadier-General Hanc.o.c.k. In this field were two or three redoubts, previously built by our troops, of one, at least, of which the enemy had possession, his artillery being posted in front of it, near some farmhouses, and supported by a body of infantry, the balance of the infantry being in the redoubt, and in the edge of the woods close by. The Twenty-fourth Virginia Regiment, as I had antic.i.p.ated, came directly upon the battery... . This regiment, without pausing or wavering, charged upon the enemy under a heavy fire, and drove back his guns and the infantry supporting them to the cover of the redoubt. ... I sent orders to the other regiments to advance; these orders were antic.i.p.ated by Colonel McRae of the Fifth North Carolina Regiment, who was on the extreme right of my brigade, and marched down to the support of the Twenty-fourth, traversing the whole front that should have been occupied by the other two regiments.”
General Early, having received a severe wound, soon after the Twenty-fourth Virginia Regiment charged the battery, was compelled by exhaustion from loss of blood and intense pain to leave the field just as the Fifth North Carolina Regiment, led by its gallant colonel, charged on the enemy's artillery and infantry. Of that charge General Early writes:
”This North Carolina Regiment, in conjunction with the Twenty-fourth Virginia Regiment, made an attack upon the vastly superior forces of the enemy, which for its gallantry is unsurpa.s.sed in the annals of warfare: their conduct was such as to elicit from the enemy himself the highest praise.”
This refers to the chivalric remark made by General Hanc.o.c.k to Dr.
Cullen, left in charge of our wounded, viz., ”The Fifth North Carolina and Twenty-fourth Virginia deserve to have the word immortal inscribed on their banners.” Colonel McRae, who succeeded to the command after General Early retired, states in his report that he sent to General Hill for reenforcements in order to advance, and in reply received an order to retire: that his men were holding the enemy to his shelter in such way that they were not at all suffering, but, when he commenced retiring, the enemy rose and fired upon his men, doing the greatest damage that was done. Some of them obliqued too far to the right in going back, and met a regiment of the enemy concealed in the woods, and were thus captured. General Early writes: ”The two regiments that united in the a.s.sault were not repulsed at all. They drove the enemy to the cover of the redoubt and the shelter of the woods near it, where he was held at bay by my two regiments, which had suffered comparatively little at that time.” He confidently expresses the opinion that, had his attack been supported promptly and vigorously, the enemy's force there engaged must have been captured, as it had crossed over to that point on a narrow mill-dam, and had only that way to escape.
The claim of the enemy to have achieved a victory at Williamsburg is refuted by the fact that our troops remained in possession of the field during the night, and retired the next morning to follow up the retreat, which was only interrupted by the necessity of checking the enemy until our trains could proceed far enough to be out of danger.
The fact of our wounded being left at Williamsburg was only due to our want of ambulances in which to remove them.
Though General McClellan at this time estimated our force as ”probably greater a good deal” than his own, the fact is, it was numerically less than half the number he had for duty. Severe exposure and fatigue must, by sickness, have diminished our force more than it was increased by absentees returning to duty after the middle of April, so that at the end of the month the number was probably less than fifty thousand present for duty. General McClellan's report on the 30th of April, 1862, as shown by the certified statement, gives the aggregate present for duty at one hundred and twelve thousand three hundred and ninety-two.[29]
When the Confederates evacuated Yorktown, General Franklin's division had just been disembarked from the transports. It was reembarked, and started on the morning of the 6th up the York River.[30]
After the battle of Williamsburg our army continued its retreat up the Peninsula. Here, for the first time, sub-terra sh.e.l.ls were employed to check a marching column. The event is thus described by General Rains, the inventor:
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