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[107] unusually heavy metal, such as one-hundred and twohundred-pounders, were erected to operate in the reduction of a strong place. The batteries as completed were, with a single exception,1 not allowed to open, as it was believed that the return fire would interfere with the labor on other works. It was preferred to wait till the preparations should be complete, and then open a simultaneous and overwhelming bombardment. This period would have been reached by the 6th of May at latest. The artillery and engineer officers judged that a very few hours' fire would compel the surrender or evacuation of the works; but, to their great chagrin, no opportunity was afforded to bring this professional opinion to the practical test; for it was discovered on the 4th of May that the Confederates had evacuated Yorktown.2 The retreat had been managed with the same masterly skill that marked the evacuation of Manassas; and the Army of the Potomac, cheated of its anticipated brilliant passage at arms, came into possession only of the deserted works and some threescore and ten siege-guns, that the Confederates had been obliged to leave as the price of their unmolested retreat. In the preceding outline of the siege of Yorktown, I have confined myself to a simple recital of events. It is well
1 The exception was in the case of what was called Battery No. 1, which on one occasion opened on the wharf at Yorktown to prevent the enemy's receiving artillery stores.
2 ‘The ease with which the two-hundred and one-hundred-pounders were worked, the extraordinary accuracy of their fire, and the since ascertained effects produced upon the enemy by it, force upon me the conviction that the fire of guns of similar calibre and power, combined with the cross-vertical fire of the thirteen and ten-inch seacoast mortars, would have compelled the enemy to surrender or abandon his works in less than twelve hours.’ Barry: Report of Artillery Operations, Siege of Yorktown, p. 134. This opinion is not justified by subsequent experience in the war, for the rude improvised earthworks of the Confederates showed an ability to sustain an indefinite pounding. General Johnston's evacuation of Yorktown seems to have been prompted by a like exaggeration of the probable effect of a bombardment.
1866.
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