"An equally good one (shot) was made by a Confederate at Yorktown. An officer of the topographical engineers walked into the open in front of our lines, fixed his plane table and seated himself to make a map of the Confederate works. A non-commissioned officer, without orders, adjusted his gun, carefully aimed it, and fired. At the report of the gun all eyes were turned to see the occasion of it, and then to observe the object, when the shell was seen to explode as if in the hands of the officer. It had been dropped squarely upon the drawing table and Lieutenant Wagner was mortally wounded."—Gen. Longstreet, in "From Manassas to Appomattox."
This shot appears, by a note to the text written by Capt. A. B. Moore, of Richmond, Va., to have been fired by Corporal Holzbudon, of the 2d company, Richmond Howitzers, from a ten-pound parrott gun.
Another incident more immediately connected with the regiment, worthy of a place in its history as an exhibition of accurate firing, occurred here. On the left of our regimental picket line was stationed a section of a field battery whose duty was to shell the enemy's works and prevent their annoying our lines. For some time Colonel Campbell watched with manifest disgust the green cannoneers blazing away at random, and with evidently little effect. At length stepping to one of the guns the colonel said:
"Boys, let me sight this gun for you." Running his eye along the sights and giving the elevating screw a turn, he said:
"Now, let her go!"
In an instant the death-dealing missile was speeding on its way, entered the enclosure and exploded amid the startled gunners of the enemy.
"There, boys, that's the way to shoot. Don't waste your powder!" said the colonel, as he turned and walked away, an expression of satisfaction wreathing his florid face.
By the 3d of May all things were in readiness to open our batteries of big guns on the Confederate fortifications and all were in excited expectation of the bombardment and possible storming of the enemy's works on the following day, but the morning light of the 4th revealed the enemy's strong works abandoned and empty. In the night, Johnson, who had superseded Magruder in command, like the Arab had "folded his tent and silently stolen away." The 105th Pennsylvania were the first to enter the abandoned works. The news of the evacuation of the works and retreat of the Confederates spread rapidly from regiment to regiment, and our bloodless victory, but not without the loss of many a brave boy, was celebrated with wild shouts and cheers. The cavalry followed closely on the heels of the retreating enemy, but the infantry did not take up the line of march until later in the day; Fighting Joe Hooker's division following first, with Kearny close in his rear. As we marched through the Confederate works, stakes planted upright in the ground with red danger signals attached gave warning that near them were planted torpedoes, placed there for the injury of the unwary by the enemy.
A story was told at the time that the planting of these torpedoes was revealed to Lieut. R. P. Crawford, of Company E, of the 57th, then serving as aid on General Jameson's staff, by a Confederate deserter. That the 105th Pennsylvania, being about to enter the abandoned works, this Confederate stepped out from the shelter of a building, and, throwing up his hands as an indication that he desired to surrender, came forward and revealed to Lieutenant Crawford, who chanced to be present, the secret danger that threatened them if they attempted to enter the works without caution. Thus forewarned of their danger, a squad of prisoners, under compulsion, were made to search out, and locate these concealed missiles, thereby preventing possible loss of life and woundings.
During the afternoon of the 4th the regiment marched with the division about four miles on the main road to Williamsburg and bivouacked for the night. By dark rain began to fall and continued throughout the night and the day following. The early morning of the 5th found us on the march again. The rain had thoroughly soaked the light clay soil and the preceding ammunition trains and batteries had worked the soft clay roads into deep ruts and numerous mud holes. To take to the fields and roadsides did not better much the marching, the unsodded fields being little better than quagmires, in which the men floundered to the knees.