General Johnston, getting information that McClellan was preparing to send a force by transports up York River to West Point, and which he, Johnston, had no means of preventing, and thus get in his rear and between him and Richmond, it was determined to evacuate the Yorktown line of defense. Accordingly, about the 3d or 4th of May, 1862, the trenches were evacuated and the whole army began falling back up the Peninsula, the wagons and artillery in front. The Yankees made a landing at West Point, but were driven back to their transports by a force sent to meet them. As we marched up the Peninsula we could hear the booming of the big guns in this fight.
The roads were in wretched condition, muddy and badly cut up by the long trains of wagons and artillery, making the march very trying and disagreeable, for it rained nearly every day about this time. No one who has not marched on foot behind army wagon and artillery trains has any conception of what muddy roads are. Horses and mules were sometimes literally buried in the mud and left to perish, or shot dead on the spot.
It is surprising how much fatigue and hardship men can stand when put to it. Soldiers were often put to the supreme test of endurance, and, no doubt, many an old Confederate soldier often says to himself, "How did we stand those long, tiresome marches, through the rain and mud of spring, through the dust and heat of summer, and midst snow and ice of winter, often poorly shod, scantily clothed, and on short, very short rations, sometimes none at all." A man can stand more than a horse. But the Confederate soldiers did stand these things, enduring more, perhaps, than any soldiers ever endured before. It took men to do these things—men with muscles, sinews, and nerves in their bodies, and courage in their hearts; and then, on the battlefield, to meet the foe two, three, and four to one, and vanquish that foe, took men of the highest valor. Of such was the Confederate soldier. The service of our Revolutionary fathers was not comparable to the arduous trials and privations of the Confederate soldiers. The privations and suffering of the army at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78 was as nothing to the experiences of the Confederates around Petersburg during the winter of 1864-5.
On February 8, 1865, General Lee wrote to the Secretary of War to this effect: "For three days and nights the right wing of the army has been in line of battle; some of the men have had no meat for three days, and all suffering from reduced rations and scant clothing, exposed to the fire of the enemy, cold, hail and sleet." About the same time General Lee issued a circular letter to the farmers in the surrounding country, beseeching them to "loan the army all the cornmeal and sorghum they could spare." But I am anticipating, so back to the Peninsula.
BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG
I should have stated before, that about the time the army fell back from Centreville and Manassas, General Longstreet was promoted to major-general, and Col. A. P. Hill of the Thirteenth Virginia Regiment was promoted to brigadier-general, and assigned to Longstreet's old brigade, which now formed a part of Longstreet's Division.
On the afternoon of the 4th of May, the brigade marched through the town of Williamsburg; slept on their arms in an open field just west of the town. Early next morning it was evident to all that a fight was on hand—staff officers and couriers were riding hither and thither in great haste. McClellan was pressing on General Johnston's rear a little too closely to suit him, and Johnston determined to give him a taste of what was in store for him later on.
Hill's Brigade, as well as other troops, infantry and artillery, were marched back through the town. Just at the eastern limits of the town the brigade turned off the road to the right, through the fields, and was massed in a deep hollow. Other troops were known to be in the woods a few hundred yards in front, and we were in position as their support.
Other troops had passed on down the Yorktown road towards Fort McGruder, and the other forts east of Williamsburg, some of which the Confederates had abandoned. I remember Latham's Battery dashing by, as we marched through the streets, at a gallop. Latham's Battery was from Lynchburg, and the men well known to many of the Eleventh Regiment. Some one in the Eleventh called out to them as they passed, asking if they were going into the fight. "Yes," shouted back Jim Ley, one of the battery; "Latham's Battery is always in the fight." Artillery firing could already be heard at the front. As the men passed along the streets, they unslung their knapsacks, depositing them in the front yards of the houses on the street—stripping for the fight. There were no forts or breastworks in our front, nor was there any artillery with the brigade or with the troops in front. The position was the extreme right of the Confederate lines.