A regiment or battalion to march from Newport News, and a regiment to march from Camp Hamilton,--Duryea's. Each will be supported by sufficient reserves under arms in camp, and with advanced guards out on the road of march. Duryea to push out two picket posts at 10 P. M.; one two and a half miles beyond Hampton, on the county road, but not so far as to alarm the enemy. This is important. Second picket half as far as the first. Both pickets to keep as much out of sight as possible. No one whatever to be allowed to pass out through their lines. Persons to be allowed to pass inward toward Hampton, unless it appears that they intend to go roundabout and dodge through to the front.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[267]
for cavalry under an experienced cavalry officer, and thus have had the ground reconnoitred and some guns served to meet the enemy's guns at the time of the attack on Big Bethel, that encounter would have resulted in an entirely different way and in perfectly certain victory for the United States troops.
There was a point nine miles from the fort and on the road leading from Hampton to Yorktown, which I learned the rebels intended to entrench and hold, because they expected a move towards Richmond to be made very soon.
The insane cry of “On to Richmond” had been continually sounded by Mr. Greeley and his coadjutors.
After carefully reconnoitring the position, I concluded upon an attack.
A creek crossed the road close by the church known as the Bethel.
The bridge over this creek was attempted to be commanded by a slight fortification some half a cannon-shot distance beyond.
Col. D. H. Hill, of North Carolina, held it with five hundred men. Our negro scouts reported them two thousand in number, and they really thought there were as many as that, for a negro scout had to be a veteran in the war before he learned that two hundred men were not a thousand, and that five hundred were not two thousand.
So upon the point of numbers I was satisfied; and I was further convinced that there were no more than one thousand in Yorktown, that might possibly come to Bethel, as they afterwards did.
After the most careful and thorough preparation, and a personal reconnoissance of the lay of the country by Major Winthrop, I came to the conclusion to attempt to take this post, and I drew up with his aid the following order for the detail of the movement :--
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.