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us, and therefore the troops were placed so as to occupy the commanding positions and wait for daylight.1 The Second Corps began to come in after midnight and relieved my extended lines, and our gallant men rested after a toilsome day.
If
Lee was coming, the sooner
Smith could get the
Appomattox between himself and
Lee the better.
Why wait?
In fact, the troops of
Lee did not get into
Petersburg until the morning of the 18th.
Kershaw's division of
Anderson's Corps,the first of
General Lee's force that arrived at
Petersburg, only reached that place on the morning of the 18th of June, as is established by the following telegram:--
Occupied last night my new lines without impediment.
Kershaw's division arrived about 7.30 and
Field's at about 9.30 o'clock. They are being placed in position.
All apparently quiet this morning.
General Lee has just arrived.
Mr. Greeley further says:--
And now, though the night was clear and the moon nearly full, Smith rested until morning, after the old but not good fashion of 1861-1862.
Quoting further from
Captain McCabe :--
3
The prize was now within his [Smith's] grasp, had he boldly advanced, and the moon, shining brightly, favored such enterprise.
But Smith, it would seem, although possessed of considerable professional skill, was not endowed with that intuitive sagacity which swiftly discerned the chances of the moment, and thus halting at that threshold of decisive victory contented himself with partial success, and having relieved his division in the captured works with Hancock's troops, waited for the morning.
Frank Wilkeson, of the Eleventh New York Battery (
Hancock's), says :--
4
That night was made to fight on. A bright and almost full moon shone above us.
