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.
[CHAPTER V.]
BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG.
The first battle in the Peninsular campaign of the Army of the Potomac was fought at Williamsburg, one of the oldest towns in Virginia. It was settled in 1632, and was capital of the Colony for many years before the Revolution. William and Mary's College is there, which was endowed by the king and queen of England with twenty thousand acres of land, and a penny on every pound of tobacco sent out of the Colony, and duties on all the furs and skins. The college buildings were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's in London.
The colonial governors resided at Williamsburg. The courts were held there. The government buildings were the noblest in America. The Governor's residence was a
magnificent edifice, with a great estate of three hundred acres attached, laid out in lawns, parks, groves, flower-gardens, and peach-orchards. It was intersected by a brook. There were winding graveled walks, shaded by oaks and lindens.
On public occasions, and on birth-nights, there were grand receptions at the palace, as it was called, where all the public officers and gentlemen assembled to pay their respects to the governor. The judges and counselors, in flowing robes and powdered wigs, the gentlemen of the Colony in broidered waistcoats, ruffled shirts, buff breeches, black stockings, and red, yellow, green, blue, or purple coats, with gold and silver shoe-buckles, and ladies in silks and satins, rode up in their carriages, driven by coachmen, and attended by footmen in livery.