Three years in the Sixth Corps

by George T. Stevens

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.