The Battle of Yorktown ( Eng. Battle of Yorktown ) or the Siege of Yorktown ( Siege of Yorktown ) lasted from April 5 to May 4, 1862 , being part of the Peninsula Campaign during the American Civil War . Moving from Fort Monroe, the Potomac Army of General McClelan met a small army of Southerners under the command of John Magruder near Yorktown , behind the line of Warwick. McClellan suspended the march on the peninsula to Richmond (Virginia) and began siege work.
Battle of Yorktown (1862) | |||
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Main conflict: US Civil War | |||
A federal battery of 13-inch mortars of 1861 during the siege of Yorktown. | |||
date | April 5 - May 4, 1862 | ||
A place | District of York and Newport News | ||
Total | draw | ||
Opponents | |||
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Commanders | |||
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Forces of the parties | |||
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Losses | |||
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On April 5, the 4th Corps of General Erasmus Case, first stumbled upon the fortifications of southerners at the Liis Mill, where McClellan actually hoped to pass unhindered. Magruder's demonstrative maneuvers convinced the feds that they were opposed by serious forces. Opponents were involved in an artillery duel, and the reconnaissance showed Keys that the enemy’s fortifications were very serious - and he advised McClellan not to attack them immediately. McClellan ordered to start creating siege fortifications and lift heavy siege weapons. Meanwhile, General Johnston sent reinforcements to Magruder.
On April 16, the northerners felt a weak spot in the defense of the enemy, but failed to take advantage of this success. As a result, McClellan spent another two weeks trying to persuade the fleet to bypass the enemy’s coastal batteries and strike the flank of the Warwick Line. McClellan conceived a massive bombing on May 5, but the Southerners on the night of May 3 moved to Williamsburg.
The battle took place near the place where the siege of Yorktown occurred in 1781 - the last battle of the American war of independence on land.
Content
Background
McClellan hoped to break through to the capital of the Confederation, Richmond , moving troops across the water to the Virginia Peninsula, to Monroe Fort. His Potomac army numbered 121,500 men. The transfer of troops began on March 17, carried out by 389 ships. McClellan planned to use the fleet to surround Yorktown , but this plan was not implemented after the appearance of the battleship Virginia and the river battle at Hampton Rhodes (March 8-9, 1862). The threat from the "Virginia" on the James River and the heavy batteries of the Southerners at the mouth of the River York excluded the support of the fleet of feds. McClellan decided to attack only ground forces.
The defenders of Yorktown were only 11-13 thousand people, they were headed by John Magruder. The remaining Confederate forces under the command of Joseph Johnston were scattered around Culpeper , Fredericksburg, and Norfolk. Magruder built a defensive line from Yorktown on the York River, across the Warwick River, and led it to Mulberry Point on the James River. This line is called the Warwick Line.
McClellan’s plan suggested that Samuel Heintzelman’s III Corps would keep the enemy in their trenches, and General Keyes’s IV Corps would bypass the Southerners on the left and cut off their communications. McClellan and his headquarters assumed that the enemy was located only near Yorktown .
Battle
The advance of the feds
On April 4, 1862, the federal army broke through the front line of the fortifications of Magruder, but the next day came across a more powerful "Warwick Line". The terrain did not allow them to determine the location of the enemy forces. Intelligence exaggerated the number of the enemy and McClellan decided that the enemy had 40,000 people in positions and that Johnston was on the way with the rest of 60,000. masses of troops.
On April 5, the 4th Federal Corps was the first to reach the line of Magruder near Liis-Mill, where the Lafayette Mac-Lowes division was holding the defense. The 7th Manx Infantry Regiment turned into a rifle chain 1000 yards from the fortifications, and was later reinforced by the John Davidson Brigade and artillery. Artillery duel lasted several hours. On April 6, the soldiers of the 6th Manx and 5th Wisconsin commanded by Brigadier General Winfield Hancock conducted a reconnaissance at Dam No. 1, where Magruder expanded the river to create an additional obstacle. Northerners rejected the pickets of the enemy and took several prisoners. Hancock decided that this area was a weak point of defense, but McClelan did not use this information. Misled by Magruder’s false maneuvers, General Case believed that the Warwick line would not be taken by storm, as reported to McClellan.
To the surprise of the Confederates and to the chagrin of President Lincoln , McClellan decided not to attack without careful reconnaissance and ordered the construction of a parallel line of fortifications, as well as the siege of Yorktown. McClellan acted on the basis of Case's reports, but also influenced by the information that General McDowell’s I Corps remained under Washington and would not be transferred to the peninsula, as McClellan hoped. As a result, for another 10 days, the northerners dug the ground, while the Magruder received reinforcements. By mid-April, Magruder had 35,000 people.
However, although McClelan doubted his numerical superiority, he had no doubt about the superiority of his artillery. For the siege of Yorktown, 15 batteries were used, more than 70 heavy guns, including two 200-pound Parrot cannons and 12 100-pound Parrots. The rest are 20-pound, 30-pound and 4.5-inch Rodmans. These guns were reinforced by the 41st mortar caliber from 8 to 13 inches, which weighed 10 tons each and fired shells weighing 220 pounds. With a simultaneous salvo, these guns threw 7,000 pounds of shells into enemy positions.
While the armies were buried in the ground, the Army Aeronautical Corps (Professor Tadeusz Love) used two balloons, the Constitution and the Intrepid, for aerial surveillance. On April 11, “Intrepid”, together with General Fitzgeon Porter (commander of the 3rd Corps), took off into the air, but was carried by the wind in the direction of the enemy’s positions. This caused panic among federal commanders, but the wind soon changed and carried the ball back. A southern captain, John Briand, was once in a similar situation.
Dam number 1
On April 16, the northerners found a weak spot in the enemy’s defense in the area of dams No. 1, near Liis-Mill, which Hancock had reported on April 6th. After a small skirmish, Magruder realized the weakness of the position and ordered it to be strengthened. Three regiments under the command of Howell Cobb were moved to the dam and three more regiments were located nearby. These movements disturbed McClellan, who saw the threat to his siege works. He ordered General William Smith , from the IV Corps, to interfere with the work of the enemy, but not to get involved in a serious battle.
After the bombing at 8:00, General William Brooks and his Vermont brigade sent forward archers. At 3:00 pm, four companies of the 3rd Vermont Regiment crossed the dam and fled the defenders. Cobb, along with his brother Thomas Cobb , formed a new line from the Georgian Legion, and attacked the Vermontans, who occupied the trenches of the southerners. In that battle, the northerner drummer Julian Scott crossed the river several times under enemy fire, carrying out the wounded, for which he later received the Medal of Honor . She received the sergeant Edward Holton and Captain Samuel Pingree.
Having received no reinforcements, the Vermont companies retreated back along the dam, suffering some losses. At around 5:00 pm General Smith ordered the 6th Vermont to attack the enemy downstream, and the 4th Vermont to conduct a demonstration at the dam. But that maneuver failed: the 6th Vermont came under fire and was forced to retreat. Some of the wounded drowned in the river.
Implications
From the point of view of the northerners, the actions of dam number 1 were meaningless, but they cost them 35 people killed and 121 wounded. Confederate losses were about 60 or 75 people. William Smith, who twice fell off his horse for this fight, was charged with drunkenness during execution, but the congressional investigation did not confirm these allegations.
Until the end of April, the Confederates, already numbering 57,000, now under the direct command of Johnston, improved their defenses, while McClellan was engaged in the difficult process of transporting heavy siege batteries. He planned to bring them into action on 5 May. Johnston understood that he would not be able to resist the bombardment, therefore on May 3 he began to transfer supplies to Richmond. The runaway slaves reported this to McClellan, but he did not believe these reports. He was convinced that the army, whose number he estimated at 120,000, would remain in place and fight. On the evening of May 3, the Southerners themselves conducted a small bombardment, after which there was silence. Early in the morning, Heinzelman took to the air in an observant balloon and found that the enemy’s fortifications were empty.
McClelan was stunned by this news. He sent George Stonman's cavalry into pursuit and ordered General William Franklin's division to dive aboard ships, climb up the River York and cut off Johnston's retreat routes. This subsequently led to the battle of Williamsburg .
Literature
- Burton, Brian K. The Peninsula & Seven Days: A Battlefield Guide. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8032-6246-1 .
- Eicher, David J. The Military History of the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. ISBN 0-684-84944-5 .
- Kennedy, Frances H. The Civil War Battlefield Guide. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998. ISBN 0-395-74012-6 .
- Salmon, John S. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001. ISBN 0-8117-2868-4 .
- Sears, Stephen W. To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign. Ticknor and Fields, 1992. ISBN 0-89919-790-6 .
- Quarstein, John V., and J. Michael Moore. Yorktown's Civil War Siege: Drums Along the Warwick. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-60949-656-2 .