[76] steam-boats expected for its transportation not having arrived before the evacuation was made. From a narrative by General Early I make the following extract:
A very valuable part of the property so lost, and which we stood much in need of, consisted of a very large number of picks and spades, many of them entirely new. All of our heavy guns, including some recently arrived and not mounted, together with a good deal of ammunition piled up on the wharf, had to be left behind.The land transportation was quite deficient. General Magruder's troops had scarcely any, and others of the more recent organizations were in a like condition; as no supplies had been accumulated at Williamsburg, this want of transportation would necessarily involve want of rations in the event of delays on the retreat. At Williamsburg, about twelve miles from Yorktown, General Magruder, as has been mentioned, had constructed a line of detached works. The largest of these, Fort Magruder, was constructed at a point a short distance beyond where the Lee's Mill and Yorktown roads united— where the enemy in his pursuit first encountered our retiring forces, and was promptly repulsed. General Magruder, whose arduous service and long exposure on the Peninsula has been noticed, was compelled by illness to leave his division. His absence at this moment was the more to be regretted, as it appears that the positions of the redoubts he had constructed were not all known to the commanding general. Some of them, being unoccupied, were seized by the enemy, and held subsequently to our disadvantage. General McClellan, in his official report from ‘bivouac in front of Williamsburg, May 5, 1862,’ says, ‘General Hancock has taken two redoubts and repulsed Early's rebel brigade by a real charge of the bayonet, taking one colonel and one hundred and fifty other prisoners.’ As this is selected for the brilliant event in the affair before Williamsburg, I will extract fully from General Early's report:
