THE EVACUATION OF YORKTOWN.
May 4, 1862.
As the month of April was passing away, dispatches from the peninsula gave assurances that the two great armies now confronting each other before Yorktown would in a few days be compelled to test their relative strength in a general engagement, should neither, meantime, voluntarily abandon the position. The daily bulletin of casualties gave evidence of closer and more sanguinary contests among the working or reconnoitering parties, or from the batteries erected on new parallels of rugged embankments springing up daily in closer proximity. A most arduous portion of the soldiers’ labor during the siege is thus graphically described:
Working in the Trenches.—A working party is detailed for night duty. With muskets slung on their backs and shovels and picks on their shoulders, they proceed to the selected ground. The white tape marks the line of excavation—the dark lanterns are “faced to the rear”—the muskets are carefully laid aside—the shovels are in hand, and each man silently commences to dig. Not a word is spoken—not one spade clicks against another. Each man first digs a hole large enough to cover himself—he then turns and digs to his right-hand neighbor. Then the ditch deepens and widens, and the parapet rises. Yet all is silent—the relief comes and the weary ones retire. The words and jests of the enemy are often heard, while no noise from the men disturbs the stillness save the dull rattle of the earth as each spadeful is thrown to the top. At daylight a long line of earthworks, affording complete protection, greets the astonished eyes of the enemy, while the sharpshooters’ bullets whisper terror to his ears.
On the 2d of May the rebels opened fire from an immense gun mounted on a pivot at a corner of the main fort on the heights of Yorktown, which inflicted serious injury on the Federals, who replied with much spirit from their No. 1 battery, mounting one and two hundred-pounder Parrot guns. On the twenty-third discharge of the enemy’s gun it burst into a thousand pieces, tearing up the parapet, and making fearful havoc among the immense crowd surrounding it. The Federal guns on No. 1 battery were then brought to bear on the rebel works at Yorktown and Gloucester, and on their shipping, with marked effect, to which they were unable to reply.
From the 1st to the 4th of May the Confederate army evacuated Yorktown, without awaking the suspicions of the besiegers, making a safe retreat with all their field artillery and most of their stores. Eighty heavy guns at Yorktown and Gloucester, with large quantities of ordnance stores, fell into possession of the Federals, who occupied the rebel ramparts on the morning of the fourth.
On the same day the iron battery Merrimac made her appearance off Sewall’s Point, and the Federal gunboats availed themselves of the opportunity to go up the York river, convoying a portion of the army transports, with the design of intercepting the retreating enemy, while most of the cavalry and horse artillery, followed by the infantry, started in immediate pursuit by land.
When within two and a half miles of Williamsburg, at two o’clock on May 4th, General Stoneman’s advance came up with the enemy, who threw out a body of cavalry to check the pursuit. Captain Gibbon’s battery was brought to bear on the horsemen, who on their approach were met by a charge of the First and Sixth regular cavalry, who drove them back, capturing twenty-five of their number. Two of the Federals were killed, and about twenty wounded; and twenty of Captain Gibbon’s horses were killed.