ments of the heroic boy, and saved his life, by shooting several rebels who were taking deliberate aim at him.

When the Third Vermont charged upon the rifle-pits, the first man who fell, pierced by six bullets, was William Scott. This young man, some months before, in his lonely midnight watch, near Chain Bridge, had fallen asleep at his post. The stern necessities of war regarded this as a grievous offence. He was doomed to die, and the day was fixed for his execution. The kind-hearted President interposed to save him, and rode over to the camp with a pardon. The young man was intelligent, brave, and earnestly patriotic. Now as he fell, and his life-blood was fast ebbing away, his comrades heard him, amidst all the din of war, praying, with his last breath, for the President of the United States.

The sharpshooters were marvellously efficient on this occasion. Ten of them, with heavy telescopic rifles, were stationed to watch the enemy's largest gun. So unerring was their fire, that every one who approached it was instantly killed. For a long time it was thus rendered utterly useless to the rebels, until at length a ball from Kennedy's battery crushed the wheels, and hurled the ponderous engine useless to the ground. Our total loss was one hundred and sixty-four in killed and wounded. Most of this loss was incurred in the disastrous retreat. And this retreat was rendered necessary by that unaccountable crime of generalship, which left brave men unsupported. Like the disaster at Ball's Bluff, and some other similar catastrophes during this war, the expedition seems to have had no responsible head. Napoleon or Wellington would probably have inquired into the matter, and some one would have been shot. We, good-naturedly, buried the dead and comforted ourselves with the assurance that there was "nobody to blame." The men, under their heroic officers, fought with bravery which could not have been exceeded. They rushed over the ramparts of the foe, and drove the outnumbering enemy from their guns. With the support which they should immediately have received, they could easily have maintained their position. By not being supported they found themselves in a trap. Their brilliant victory thus became a disastrous defeat.

CHAPTER III.

THE SIEGE OF YORKTOWN.

From April 19th to May 8d, 1862.

VAST SIEGE-WORKS CONSTRUCTED.-INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE GARRISON.-GENERAL FRANKLIN'S DIVISION. SCENES OF THE SIEGE-HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES.-THE UNEXPECTED RETREAT OF THE FOE.-THE PURSUIT.

A MONTH was spent by the National Army in its slow approaches upon Yorktown. The impatience of the nation became feverish. While many military officers approved of this cautious procedure, there were others who deemed it entirely unnecessary. They affirmed that the army was becoming more demoralized by the labors of this long siege, than it would have been by even an unsuccessful assault. General McClellan, who had strongly objected to the order of the President, which detached General McDowell's corps for the defence of Washington, called so incessantly and earnestly for reënforcements, that, on the 11th of April, General Franklin's division of McDowell's corps was sent to Fortress Monroe, and placed under General McClellan's orders.* By the 30th of April, according to official returns, the National troops on the Peninsula, present for duty, amounted to one hundred and twelve thousand three hundred and ninetytwo. The President was greatly annoyed by the apparent dilatoriness of army movements, the cause of which he could not understand. On the 1st of May he telegraphed to General McClellan :

"Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because it argues indefinite procrastination. Is any thing to be done?"

On Thursday morning, April 17th, the day after the apparently needless repulse of our victorious troops at Lee's Mills, General McClellan, with his staff, appeared at General Keyes's head-quarters, and hastily examined, from a distance, the enemy's works which we had taken and lost. For a

General William B. Franklin was born in York, Pennsylvania, February 27th, 1823. He entered West Point, and graduated, with its highest honors, at the head of a class of thirty-nine, in 1843. As lieutenant in the corps of Topographical Engineers, he was employed for two years in a survey of the Northern lakes. In 1845, under General Kearney, he accompanied an expedition to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains. In 1846 he accompanied the army of General Wool to Mexico. There, joining the staff of General Taylor, he fought at Buena Vista, where he distinguished himself for his gallantry. In 1848, he was recalled to West Point, and was appointed Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. In 1852, he accepted a situation to teach the same branches in the New York City Free Academy. This situation he held but a short time, and was engaged in various offices of civil and military engineering, in several parts of the land. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion, he was appointed, in 1861, Colonel of the Twelfth Infantry, and superintended the transportation of volunteers to the seat of war. In the disastrous battle of Bull Run, his brigade was in the hottest of the fight and covered tho retreat. He is regarded as one of the most able officers in the army.

few days there was no fighting anywhere along the extended lines. Our troops, vastly outnumbering the foe, were impatient to be led to the assault, but were restrained until all things were arranged to render the success of an assault a certainty. In the mean time the rebels were every hour receiving reënforcements and strengthening their redoubts. General McClellan kept his troops very vigorously at work in the trenches. Ten thousand men were incessantly employed with axes and spades, so relieved, that the work could go on uninterruptedly night and day. Abatis of felled trees, with sharpened branches, were constructed, trenches opened, and batteries reared.

There was a narrow creek winding along in front of the patriot line. The banks of this stream were fringed with tulip-trees; and flowering shrubs, in full bloom, cheered the eye with beauty and filled the air with fragrance. While the men worked, as far as possible, under concealment, the rebels kept up a constant fire upon them. Balls and shells shrieked through the air, and shivered the branches of the trees, doing, however, so little harm, that it became a source of amusement for those in the rear to go to the front, to witness the impotent cannonade. The Prince de Joinville speaks glowingly of the picturesque scene presented, when, in the evening of a fine sunny day, the detachment of ten thousand laboring soldiers returned from the trenches through the blossoming woods. They marched gayly to the sound of martial music. The silken banners, the white tents, the bugle peals, the movements of the well-drilled troops, the heavy boom of distant guns, the prancing of steeds, the balloon floating in the air-all combined in the creation of a scene of sublimity and of beauty, from which every thing revolting in war was excluded.

Rapidly the siege-works rose around Yorktown. Immense rifled guns, throwing one hundred and two hundred pound shot, were brought up and placed in commanding positions. Mortars of thirteen and a half inch calibre were stationed to drop their shells within the rebel redoubts, and fifteen batteries, with four redoubts, were prepared to rain down a concentric fire upon the foe. While this immense labor was being accomplished, scarce a gun was fired from the patriot side. So admirable was the mechanism of the immense cannon, which threw shot weighing two hundred pounds, that four men could work them with ease; and their balls would strike the mark with great accuracy at the distance of three miles.

All were impatient to witness the operation of one of these mammoth guns, and one day, rather as a matter of experiment and curiosity, a few balls were hurled against the redoubts of the foe. The rebels replied with a somewhat smaller rifled piece, mounted on one of the bastions of Yorktown. For several hours this exciting artillery duel continued. As the huge gun was discharged, the soldiers sprang upon the parapet to watch the effects of the shot. At the flash of the responding gun, they jumped down behind the shelter of the rampart. The distance was so great, that they had ample time, after the flash, to reach their shelter before the ball arrived. The shells generally passed over their heads, striking the ground about one hundred and fifty feet beyond, and exploding with such force as to throw stones and earth fifty or sixty feet into the air.

Yorktown, a port of entry, and the capital of York County, Virginia, was, before the rebellion, a quiet, unobtrusive little village of between twenty and thirty houses, half of them uninhabited. The place, quite insignificant in itself, had been rendered memorable by the siege, in 1781, of the British forces under Cornwallis, by the united forces of France and America, under Washington and Rochambeau. At every step our soldiers were coming upon the traces of this renowned conflict, which was the finishing blow in securing the independence of our country. The old decayed hovel is still pointed out, in which Lafayette had his head-quarters. It was France who aided us in those dark hours through which we struggled to independence, and we shall be indeed ungrateful if we ever forget it. The Prince de Joinville, as he contemplated these scenes, feelingly writes:

"I could not but ask myself if, by a strange caprice of destiny, these same ramparts might not behold the undoing of the work of 1781; and if, from the slow siege of Yorktown, both the ruin of the great Republic and the rupture of the Franco-American alliance might not be fated to come forth."

Whatever might be the opinion of individuals as to our power to take Yorktown by storm, there was no doubt whatever that, with our immense resources, we could take it with all ease if we were willing to resort to the slow operations of siege. The rebels, with no casemates in which they could take shelter, with no defences but simple earthworks, could not make any prolonged resistance. Summer, with its malaria and its fevers, was rapidly approaching, and every day of delay perilled almost the existence of the army. The whole month of April passed away in this weary work. Every movement was ordered upon the most approved principles of military engineering. This was the specialty of General McClellan, and he enjoyed work which he could perform so well. At length every thing was arranged for the grand bombardment; the choicest troops were selected for the most important positions; the signals were all ready to set the transports in motion, so soon as Yorktown should fall, to convey Franklin's division up the York River and cut off the rebels in their retreat. But alas! the moment we were ready to clutch the bird it flew !

The rebels, having detained us before their earthworks for nearly a month, and knowing to an hour when we intended to strike the blow, which, they were as fully aware as we, must be decisive, on the night of the 3d of May quietly evacuated Yorktown and all their lines on the Warwick River. They had learned how to do this at Manassas and Corinth. On the 3d the rebels opened a tremendous fire from all their batteries, driving the patriots from their signal-posts, and, under cover of this fire, they safely and without molestation withdrew.

As the day dawned on the 4th of May, our sharpshooters, peeping from the rifle-pits in the advance, were surprised that none of the enemy could be seen in or around the distant ramparts. Some of the patriots cautiously crept forward. All was silence and solitude. Emboldened and amazed, they advanced to the very embrasures of the redoubts, and there was no enemy there. Through various telegraphic lines the intelligence flashed to

head-quarters, and as speedily was conveyed through the ranks of the army. Like a phantom the rebels had disappeared, and the soldiers, with chagrin inexpressible, mourned over the loss of the brilliant victory they had so long anticipated.*

The rebels, well satisfied with the delay they had occasioned, fell back upon the lines in their rear, which in the mean time they had been vigilantly throwing up for the defence of Richmond. Our army, having been so long encamped in a region of poisonous swamps, was suffering severely from sickness. The malaria which assailed the men speedily consigned thousands to the hospital. The Northern soldiers generally were highly intelligent men, and they fully comprehended our unfortunate position. A sense of discouragement oppressed the army.

It

Throughout the community at large parties were formed, some warmly approving, others bitterly condemning the conduct of the campaign. was observed that all those who were favorably inclined towards slavery, who were disposed to sympathize with the rebels, who were hostile to all measures of emancipation, and who avowed the desire to reconstruct the Union by yielding to the demands of the slaveholders, were loud in their commendation of these cautious measures. There were prominent members of Congress and leading officers in the army, who openly declared that they did not wish to irritate "our friends" in the South, by striking them very heavy blows. They hoped, by the show of resistless strength, and by the manifestation of a spirit of forbearance and conciliation-by gentle and persuasive violence-to win back our "wayward sisters." They did not attempt to conceal their desire to secure the return of the seceded States upon the basis of new concessions to the demands of slavery. Though General McClellan is not known to have committed himself to these views, it was generally understood that he was the recognized representative of this party. They all, with one voice, proclaimed him their chieftain.

The radical hostility of the rebels to the principles of our free institutions was every day more emphatically avowed under the exasperations of the war. The following statement from the Richmond (Virginia) Examiner, issued 'about this time, forcibly expresses the views held by the rebels respecting human rights, and avows, in language which cannot be misunderstood, the change they wished to have effected in the American Constitution, with which alone they would be satisfied:

"The establishment of the Confederacy is a distinct reaction against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. And this is the true reason why we have been left without the sympathy of the nations, until we conquered that sympathy with the sharp edge of our sword. For 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,' we have deliberately substituted Slavery, Subordination, and Government. Those social and political problems which rack and torture modern society, we have undertaken to solve for ourselves, in our own way, and upon our own principles. That, 'among equals equality is right;' among those who are naturally unequal, equality

In the investigation of this affair by the Congressional Committee, one of the witnesses tes tifies that General McClellan was very much chagrined and mortified at the evacuation, as he had made his preparations to open from his batteries on Monday, the 5th of May."