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[231]

General Beauregard, seeing the immense gravity of the attack, and that a heavy mass of the Federal army was now present and pressing against Petersburg, at 9.11 P. M. on the 15th, notified General Bragg of the situation. He informed him that he would order Johnson down from Bermuda Hundreds, and that General Lee must look to the defence both of those lines and of Drury's Bluff.1 He also telegraphed General Lee to the same effect.2 The War Department had already been advised of the probable necessity of such a movement, and had been asked to elect between Petersburg and the Bermuda Hundreds line, as it grew more and more evident that both could not be held.3 For reasons of its own the War Department would make no decision in the matter. But, as immediate action was imperative, General Beauregard assumed the responsibility, and, knowing that the safety of Richmond depended upon the protection to be given to Petersburg, at 10.20 P. M. ordered the abandonment of the Bermuda Hundreds line. Johnson's division was accordingly transferred to Petersburg, moving at dawn on the 16th, and arriving at or about 10 o'clock A. M. on the same day. The thin skirmish line and few cavalry pickets which, in obedience to orders, he had left upon his withdrawal were driven off by Butler early on that morning.

The battery at Howlett's house had just been completed and armed with a few heavy guns received from Richmond when General Beauregard determined to evacuate those lines. He ordered Colonel Harris, his Chief-Engineer, to dismount the guns and bury them, with their carriages and chassis, in the most favorable locality in the vicinity of the battery, and to carefully cover the spot with sod, leaves, and bushes, so as to conceal them from the enemy. These instructions were carried out to the letter; and when, on the 18th, Pickett's division drove off the Federals from the Howlett Battery and the Bermuda Hundreds line, these guns and their appurtenances, being unearthed and found uninjured, were placed again in position, and used with telling effect on the Federal ironclads and other vessels lying in the long reach of Dutch Gap, facing the battery.

Thus reinforced, General Beauregard had under him a total effective force of about 10,000 men, of all arms, confronting

1 See Appendix.

2 See Appendix

3 See Appendix.

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