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road,) where we had already unearthed several sunken bombs and suspected others were concealed. I thought some casualty would occur, and watched the progress of the long column. The cavalry passed in by fours, and the last company had reached the gate when-another explosion, a dead horse, and badly mutilated rider. "Send for an ambulance." "Lay the man by the roadside." Attention, company! Forward by fours!" Another explosion inside the great fortress, not five minutes since and they are even now carrying a poor groaning fellow in front of the rebel tent in which I am writing.

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knowledge of the location of some of our camps. Just then an indiscriminate mass of ammunitionwagons, which had been bearing shells to our outworks, under cover of the night, came rolling with great tumult into our field. The mules were stampeding, frightened by the enemy's heavy fire. All thought, for a moment, that the rebels were making a sortie, and that some of our field-batteries were taking a "safer position.' Then came the discovery of the reality, and much joking, but just as many shells. For several hours the rebels fired two-minute guns. At last we got out of patience, and opened some heavy replies. After ten minutes-at about two A.M. ——— Well, we have the works, the deserted townnot another rebel shot was heard. Then desert- a village of twenty houses-heaps of shot and ers came in, declaring that the rear-guard of the shell, forty spiked guns in one work alone, and foe had evacuated, and was pushing for Williams- thirty-one more in the residual aggregate. Your burgh. correspondents have taken hasty outlines of the In two hours it was daylight. Lowe and Gen-Yorktown intrenchments, and will try to send you eral Heintzelman made a hurried balloon ascen- them copied on an engineer's map of the lines, sion, and confirmed the report of the deserters. with our batteries and approaches 'carefully disNext Colonel Sam. Black, Sixty-second Pennsyl- played. There is no humbug nor Quaker-gun vania, Colonel Gove, Twenty-second Massachu- business about these last-captured rebel works. setts, and Captain Boughton, Thirteenth New-Magruder has done his best with them, and has York, with their trench details, all led by General Jameson, general of the trenches, advanced as skirmishers, at their own risk, and clambered the parapets of Yorktown. Colonel Sam. Black and General Jameson were the first men in, and unfurled the Stars and Stripes upon the great waterangle, whose huge gun, now exploded, gave us so much trouble a week ago.

I think the Press brigade, as usual, was the next corps to enter the rebel lines.

By eight A.M. the whole army, east and west, was in hot pursuit of the retreating rebels. I learn thus much of the left wing, and am myself now writing in the Yorktown works, while Gen. Fitz-John Porter's division, from the right wing, is pouring through the gates and on beyond the fortresses, by the Williamsburgh river road. It is preceded by the McClellan dragoons and Sixth cayalry, with a large artillery force. It will not be surprising if we yet have a battle on the peninsula. It will surprise us if we do not make many prisoners, as the deserting stay-behinds report the enemy somewhat demoralized, and that many of the Irish and Kentucky soldiers have taken to the woods.

One hundred thousand men have occupied the whole line opposed to us. Eight thousand staid at Yorktown alone until two o'clock this morning, then left post haste, spiking all the guns which they could not remove, and burying percussion torpedoes in the various approaches and gateways. I had scarce entered the fort second from the river when a frightful explosion took place, where a group of men were standing in the quadrangle. One of the New-York Thirty-eighth (which regiment, Col. J. H. Ward, first occupied this stronghold) men had trodden on the spring of an infernal rebel machine. Two soldiers were killed, I think, and others wounded. Just afterward the McClellan dragoons came on, leading the van of the army. They pressed up toward the main entrance of the rebel rifle-pit, (across the Williamsburgh

been a year in doing it. Our deathful and visible means for reducing the line have alone made the rebels abandon it without striking a blow-at no loss of life to an army which would, nevertheless, have possessed it at any loss. Unequalled by any previous rebel earthworks as are the walls of Yorktown, I do not believe their defenders could have endured three days of the general bombardment which was to have commenced so soon.

Writing, as you see, in haste to push on with the rest, I will this morning give you only the outline features of Yorktown. An immense earth wall, fifteen feet at the parapet and twenty at the base, completely invests the land boundaries of the place, reaching from the river-bank below to the river-shore above. This wall is eighteen feet in height, from the bottom of a ditch eleven feet high and twelve feet wide. It has transverses, bomb-proofs, etc., well distributed throughout. It is over a mile in total length, and Yorktown is forever henceforth a fortress, lacking only casemates to make it very secure. On the water side are three batteries, mounting plenty of heavy guns, of which only a dozen or so remain. High in the village are the old works of 1781. Through the plains on the southern approach deep gorges form natural moats; and across the York River lies Gloucester Point, with a scanty rear-guard just hurrying from its supporting works, and a yellow flag still fluttering from its hospital.

To conclude, for I must end and forward these hurried pages:

I. Will the rebels make a stand at an interior line of peninsula defences?

Deserters say they will not; that they are afraid of McDowell's advance, and are hastening to unite with their Gordonsville columns; that the failure of Forts Jackson and St. Philip to sink our gunboats in the Mississippi has opened their eyes to the admirable shrewdness of McClellan in essaying the peninsula.

Per contra. Read the curious addresses which

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"TO THE B'HOYS FROM LINCOLNDOM-FROM DIXIE. "YORKTOWN, May 2.

"We leave you by order of our superiors, but we do so with the consolation of meeting you soon again. Know, gentlemen, that we are more anxious to do so now than ever before. The war has just begun. You will have to contest every inch of ground with us after this. For this is the last time we obey orders to retreat without trying your mettle, let them emanate from whom they may; and ours are the feelings of every soldier from Louisiana.

"We are, with the compliments of the noncommissioned officers and privates of company E, First battery heavy artillery,

"First Sergeant, E. T. GROVER,
"Second Sergeant, FRED. WINTERS,
"Fourth Sergeant, J. M. STAPLES,
"And others."

One more specimen, and you will see that the "internal evidence" of rebel intentions is at least conflicting:

"To Gen. McClellan and Command:

"The Fortieth Alabama regiment have been sitting very quiet for the last four hours, listening to our guns belching vengeance to your lines. You might as well attempt to change the run of the James River as to subjugate the Confederacy. Co. K, 40th Ala."

Vale!

Vale!

II. Why have the rebels not been so completely surrounded that any movement would have been utterly impossible without a battle?

Perhaps because Gen. McDowell's command was ordered to Fredericksburgh, and its control taken away from Gen. McClellan, at the moment when the latter had ordered it to proceed to Urbana, on the Rappahannock, and push for the rebel rear. Perhaps because the Merrimac has prevented such boats as Commodore Goldsborough has had from sailing up the rivers. Perhaps because McClellan had landed all his force at Old Point before knowing that he was to be deprived of McDowell's corps d'armée. Perhaps because we are getting thus far bravely on to Richmond and all is as well as it could be. Probably from a combination of all these and other It is not yet time, nor has any one yet the power, to write a fair and faithful history of this campaign.

causes.

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To the Freemen of Arkansas:

FELLOW-CITIZENS: Again your authorities, charged with the duty of preserving and defending your State government, deem it imperatively Northern troops, necessary to call you to arms. formidable in numbers and preparation, are in the heart of your State, marching upon your capital, with the avowed purpose of perverting your goyernment, plundering your people, eating your subsistence, and erecting over your heads as a final consummation, a despotic ruler the measure of whose power will be the hatred he bears his subjects.

Will the thirty thousand freemen, capable of bearing arms, yet in Arkansas, look listlessly on, while chains are being riveted upon their limbs by a few thousand Hessians from the Northhireling mercenary cowards as they are, seeking to enslave us, that they may grow rich upon our substance, and divide us and our children as conquered subjects. This cannot, will not be-our people in the government of their choosing — in the sacredness of their persons - - and defence of We can and their property must be determined. will defend it; unaided if it must be so, at every cost and sacrifice, rather than live under the domination of the detestable and execrable Lincoln government.

The enemy upon our soil is crushing to earth the proud spirit of our people; presuming upon the temporary absence of many of our brave men, they seek to crush the energy and courage of the remainder. We will drive them from amongst

us.

Where there is a will there is always a way. An enlightened and brave people will never be subjugated.

The armies of the revolution were at one time under George Washington, reduced to two thousand five hundred men; still with the blessings of God and an undying spirit of resistance, the American colonies, each upon its own account, putting forth its entire energies, conquered a peace from a reluctant and powerful government. So if we of Arkansas are true to ourselves-true to our professions of hatred for the North, and devotion to the South-true in our devotion for constitutional liberty and free government, the sun will never set upon us a subjugated and conquered race. Then by authority and sanction of the Military Board whose duty it is to protect the State from invasion-whose right it is to call an army in the field when the confederate States "refuse or neglect " to protect the people, I call upon each and every man capable of bearing arms to prepare at once to meet the enemy, though it is not contemplated that all will go-some must-a sufficient number must, to free the State and repel the tyrant. The law is, "that every able-bodied free white male inhabitant between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, shall constitute the militia of the State. No person shall be called

knowledertorm militia duty who has not resided jugated, is not Arkansas as she entered the conAnin the State two months, except in cases of federate government. Nor will she remain invasion, in which case they are subject as other Arkansas a confederate State, desolated as a wilcitizens, and subject to the same penalties." Fur-derness; her children fleeing from the wrath to ther, the law provides: "Judges of the supreme come, will build them a new ark and launch it on and circuit courts, secretary, auditor and treas-new waters, seeking a haven somewhere, of equalurer of the State, clerks of the supreme and circuit ity, safety and rest. Be of good cheer, my councourts, postmasters, post-riders, ferrymen on pub- trymen, there is still a balm in Gilead, the good lic roads, all licensed preachers of the Gospel of Samaritan will be found. Strike now and ever every denomination, and justices of the peace, for your homes and liberty, against all men who shall be exempt from performing military duty, invade the one or dispute the other. The despotic except in cases of insurrection and invasion." power of the North, which seeks now to crush Hence it will be seen, by the law above quoted, you, contains in its own creation ripe seeds for its that all men found in the State, between the early destruction. ages of eighteen and forty-five, if physically able, may be called to the field now, the State being invaded. The State, always sovereign, is sovereign yet, in her reserved rights, one of which is to defend her own soil-her own governmenther own people, and to put every one, between certain ages, found in her borders, into the field, if necessary to do it. This is the law, State and national, and if it were not, the people in their potential power, would make it so.

By your authority and sanction, your representatives in convention assembled at the capital in May last, severed the State of Arkansas from the United States of America, upon the doctrine of State sovereignty, from which grew up the confederate States. This, in the retrospect, may be viewed no less a political right than a moral and political virtue. Looking to our happiness, and the transmission of republican liberty for the present age and future generations, an alliance was formed with the confederate States of America. In the support of this government no star in the galaxy has shed a brighter lustre than Arkansas. No people have evinced more valor or a more self-sacrificing spirit, than hers in upholding confederate nationality. Every doorway is stained with the blood of her children, every roof is a house of mourning, and her altars are consecrated to benedictions for the dead and lost in battle. The flower of her youth, the pride of her manhood have without stint been lavished for the maintenance and support of the Confederation. She has done this because of her generous confidence, that when the evil hour came upon her, the national ensign, the confederate flag, would be found floating from her battlements, defying the invader and giving succor to her people.

Untoward events have placed her beyond the pale of protection much impaired, though not incapable of resistance, she will strike a blow for liberty, and continue to be free; if left to her fate she will carve a new destiny rather than be subjugated. It was for liberty she struck, and not for subordination to any created secondary power North or South. Her best friends are her natural allies, nearest at home, who will pulsate when she bleeds, whose utmost hope is not beyond her existence. If the arteries of the confederate heart do not permeate beyond the east bank of the Mississippi, let Southern Missourians, Arkansians, Texans, and the great West know it and prepare for the future. Arkansas lost, abandoned, sub

Stand out like men and resist that power, until the hallowed light shed by Southern States rights Democratic liberty shall throw its light back upon the very North itself, from the Rio Grande of the South to the Lake of the Woods; and westward to the Pacific. The God of nations has not decreed, I think, that tyrant hands shall stay the progress of civil and religious liberty upon this continent. The right of the people to govern is an admitted truism. Their capacity to do so is not a fable; but "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance;" be jealous of encroachments, mindful of your public servants. Take the Constitution of your State as your political text-book, and regard the defence of your homes and firesides as a duty you owe to God and humanity, and all will be well.

Correlative with these views, it is by the Military Board of the State of Arkansas deemed essential for the public safety, that four thousand five hundred men be called as volunteers from the militia of the State, to be organized into companies, battalions and regiments, as directed by ordinances of the State Convention, to serve for twelve months in State service unless sooner discharged. The companies not to contain less than sixty-four nor more than ninety-six men, exclusive of commissioned officers. Twenty companies of cavalry will be received, and thirty companies of infantry, with the right, on the part of the authorities, to assign one or more of the infantry companies for artillery service. Each volunteer must furnish his own gun, which will be valued and paid for by the State, or a certain amount paid for it monthly by the government for its use, as the State may ultimately determine.

Companies organizing south of the Arkansas River will rendezvous at Little Rock, unless other instruction are given. Those organizing north of the river will be advised of the proper point to rendezvous by applying to the Military Board for orders. Transportation, subsistence, etc., etc., will be supplied upon application, for organized companies; no company will be esteemed organized until a descriptive list is filed with the Military Board, showing the requisite number of men ; certificates of election for company officers should accompany the descriptive list. Any commissioned officers of the State may hold and certify to company elections. Able-bodied men, sixteen years and upwards, may be received into service. If the requisite number of men is not made up by

volunteering by the 25th of May, the deficiency will be detailed or drafted from the militia brigades or regiments having the fewest men in service. Troops raised under this call will not be transferred to confederate service under any circumstances without their consent, and on no account, unless a confederate force, sufficient to prevent invasion, is sent into the State. These are raised exclusively for home protection. Horses, horse equipments and arms lost by the casualties of war, will be paid for by the State. Men of means and leisure, although advanced in years, now have an opportunity, without sacrifice, to go and fight- too old to walk, they can now go on horseback. Men tilling the soil can be less conveniently spared; something must be produced to eat, either to live or to fight. I say to the gentlemen of leisure and wealth, make up this call; leaving the tiller of the soil at home to produce something for our families and the country. There are many more than the number called for here in Arkansas who will not run a furrow this summer, nor do anything else substantially beneficial to the country. Business, in the way of trade, is measurably suspended, and money-making for a time ought to be. To be rich now, is impossible, for if one owned the whole State, it is worth nothing until freed. The wave of destruction has rolled over the north-east portion of the State, and will soon reach the south, unless staid by a rampart of Arkansas freemen. I am for defence - the Military Board is for defence, and if aided by the people, the State will be redeemed. H. M. RECTOR,

Governor, and President of Military Board.

Doc. 7.

BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURGH, VA.

GENERAL MCCLELLAN'S DESPATCH.

BIVOUAC IN FRONT OF WILLIAMSBURGH, May 5, 1862, 10 o'clock P.M. Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War: AFTER arranging for movements up York River, I was urgently sent for here. I find Gen. Jo Johnston in front of me in strong force, probably greater a good deal than my own.

Gen. Hancock has taken two redoubts and repulsed Early's rebel brigade by a real charge with the bayonet, taking one colonel and a hundred and fifty other prisoners, and killing at least two colonels and many privates. His conduct was brilliant in the extreme.

I do not know our exact loss, but fear that Gen. Hooker has lost considerably on our left. I learn from the prisoners taken that the rebels intend to dispute every step to Richmond.

I shall run the risk of at least holding them in check here, while I resume the original plan. My entire force is undoubtedly inferior to that of the rebels, who will fight well; but I will do all I can with the force at my disposal.

G. B. MCCLELLAN, Major-General Commanding.

GENERAL HOOKER'S OFFICIAL REPORT.

HEADQUARTERS HOOKER'S DIVISION, THIRD ARMY CORPS, WILLIAMSBURGH, VA., May 10, 1862. Captain C. McKeever, Asst. Adjt.-Gen. Third Army Corps:

I have the honor to report that under the instructions received through the Headquarters Third Army Corps, dated May fourth, "to support Stoneman, and aid him in cutting off the retreat of the enemy," my division marched from its camp before Yorktown, about noon that day. We marched toward Williamsburgh. After advancing five or six miles on this road, I learned that Brig.-Gen. Stoneman had fallen upon the rear of the enemy's retreating column, and was there awaiting the arrival of an infantry force to attack them.

This was five or six miles in advance of me, and immediately I left my command and galloped to the front, in order to see what disposition it would be necessary to make of my force on its arrival. While here, I was informed that Brig.Gen. Smith's division had filed into the road in advance of my command, and that, in consequence, my division would be compelled to halt until after Smith's had passed. I immediately returned to the head of my column, where I found my division halted; and as Smith's was extended, it was between three and four hours in passing. As soon as this was ascertained, and feeling that Stoneman would require no additional support, I applied to Brig.-Gen. Heintzelman, the superior officer charged with the advance on the Yorktown road, for authority to throw my command on to the Hampton road, which intersected that on which Brig. Gen. Stoneman had halted, at the identical point his enemy occupied. The angle formed by the two roads is a little less than a right angle. Obtaining this permission, the head of my division left the brick church about dark, and it pressed forward in order, if practicable, to come up with the enemy before morning. This, however, I soon found would be impossible, for the roads were frightful, the night intensely dark and rainy, and many of my men exhausted from loss of sleep, and from labor the night before in the trenches. The troops were halted in the middle of the road, between ten and eleven o'clock P.M., resolved to stop until daylight, when we started again, and came in sight of the enemy's works before Williamsburgh about half-past five o'clock in the morning. Before emerging from the forest the column was halted, while I rode to the front to find what could be learned of the position of the enemy.

The first work that presented itself was Fort Magruder, and this was standing at the junction of the Yorktown and Hampton roads, and on each side of it was a cordon of redoubts extending as far as could be seen. Subsequently I found their number to be thirteen, and extending entirely across the peninsula, the right and left of them resting on the waters of the York and James Rivers. Approaching them from the south, they are concealed by heavy forest until the observer is within less than a mile of their locality.

Where the forest had been standing nearer than this distance the trees had been felled, in order that the occupants of the redoubts might have timely notice of the approach of an enemy, and early strike him with artillery. The trees had been felled in this manner on both sides of the road on which we had advanced for a breadth of almost half a mile, and the same was the case on the Yorktown road. Between the edge of the felled timber and the fort was a belt of clear, arable land, six or seven hundred yards in width. This was dotted all over with rifle-pits.

In connection with the redoubts themselves, I may be permitted to state, that I found them standing near the eastern and southern verge of a slightly elevated plain, the slopes of which were furrowed with widening ravines, with an almost boundless, gently undulating plain, reaching across the peninsula, and extending to the north and west as far as the eye can reach. The landscape is highly picturesque and not a little heightened by the large trees and venerable spires of Williamsburgh, two miles distant.

Fort Magruder appears to be the largest of the redoubts-its crest measuring nearly half a mile, with substantial parapets, ditches, magazines, etc. This was located to command the Yorktown and Hampton roads, and the redoubts in its vicinity to command the ravines, which the guns of Fort Magruder could not sweep.

Being in pursuit of a retreating army, I deemed it my duty to lose no time in making the disposition of my forces to attack, regardless of their number and position, except to accomplish the result with the least possible sacrifice of life. By so doing, my division, if it did not capture the army before me, would at least hold them in order that some others might.

Besides, I knew of the presence of more than thirty thousand troops not two miles distant from me, and that within twelve miles (four hours' march) was the bulk of the army of the Potomac. My own position was tenable for double that length of time against three times my number.

At half-past seven o'clock, Brig.-Gen. Grover was directed to commence the attack, by sending the First Massachusetts regiment as skirmishers into the felled timber on the left of the road on which they were standing-the Second NewHampshire regiment to the right-both with directions to skirmish up to the edge of the felled timber, and there, under cover, to turn their attention to the occupants of the rifle-pits, and the enemy's sharp-shooters and gunners in Fort Magruder.

The Eleventh Massachusetts regiment, and the Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania, were then directed to form on the right of the Second New Hampshire, and to advance as skirmishers until they had reached the Yorktown road, and when that was gained to have word sent to me.

Under my Chief of Artillery, Webber's battery was thrown forward in advance of the fallen timber, and brought into action in a cleared field on the right of the road, and distant from Fort Ma

gruder about seven hundred yards. No sooner had it emerged from the forest, on the way to its position, than four guns from Fort Magruder opened on it, and after it was still further up the road, they received the fire from two additional guns from a redoubt on the left. However, it was pushed on, and before it was brought into motion, two officers and two privates had been shot down, and before a single piece of the battery had been discharged, its cannoniers had been driven from it despite the skill and activity of my sharp-shooters in picking off the rebel gunners. Volunteers were now called for by my gallant Chief of Artillery, Major Wainwright, to man the battery now in position, when the officers and cannoniers of Osborne's battery sprang forward, and in the time I am writing, had those pieces well at work. Bramhall's battery was now brought into action under that excellent officer, on the right of Webber's, and before nine o'clock every gun in Fort Magruder was silenced, and all the troops in sight on the plain dispersed. Between the sharp-shooters and the two batteries the enemy's guns in this fort were not heard from again until late in the afternoon.

One of the regiments in Brig.-Gen. Patterson's brigade- the Fifth New-Jersey -was charged with the especial care of these batteries, and was posted a little to the rear of them. The remaining regiments of Patterson's brigade, under their intrepid commander, were sent into the left of the road from where they were standing, in anticipation of an attack from that quarter.

Heavy forest trees cover this ground and conceal from the view the enemy's earthworks, about a mile distant. The forest itself has a depth of about three fourths of that distance. It was through this that Patterson led the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth New-Jersey regiments. Bodies of the enemy's infantry were seen drifting in that direction, and the increased musketry fire proved that many others were flocking thither, whom we could not see.

Prior to this movement, Brig.-Gen. Emory had reached my position with a light battery and a body of cavalry, which were promptly placed at my disposal by that experienced and gifted soldier; but, as I had no duty on which I could employ those arms of service, and as I was confined for room in the exercise of my own command, I requested that he would despatch a party to reconnoitre and observe the movements of the rebels to the rear of my left. This was executed to my satisfaction.

It was now reported to me that the skirmishers to the right had reached the Yorktown road, where word was sent to Col. Blaisdell to proceed with the Eleventh Massachusetts and Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania regiments cautiously down that road, to destroy any rebel force he might find, and break down any barrier the enemy might have thrown up to check the advance of our forces in that direction, and when this was executed to report the fact to the senior officer with the troops there, and on his return to send me

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