Edward Porter Alexander, Military memoirs of a Confederate: a critical narrative

[66] 100-Pr. rifles opened fire, and by May 6 he expected all the other batteries to be able to join in. But Johnston had never intended to risk siege operations at this point, and at sundown on May 3 put his army in motion toward Richmond. His heavy guns were fired actively all the day before, and until midnight, when the artillerists spiked them and withdrew.

I recall that night's march as particularly disagreeable. The whole soil of that section seemed to have no bottom and no supporting power. The roads were but long strings of guns, wagons, and ambulances, mixed in with infantry, artillery, and cavalry, splashing and bogging through the darkness in a river of mud, with frequent long halts when some stalled vehicle blocked the road. Then men from the nearest ranks would swarm in to help the jaded horses pull the vehicle out. Meanwhile, everything in the rear must halt and wait, and so it went on all night —a march of one or two minutes, and halt for no one could guess how long. The average time made by the column was under a mile an hour.

Our movement was not discovered by the enemy until after daylight on the 4th. His cavalry was at once started in pursuit, and these were followed during the day by five divisions of infantry under Smith, Hooker, Kearney, Couch, and Casey, the whole under command of Sumner. Besides these, Franklin's division was loaded upon transports during the day, and early on the 6th sailed up the York to intercept us near West Point. Two other divisions, Sedgwick's and Richardson's, were also to have been sent by water, and McClellan remained in Yorktown to see them loaded and despatched. But the fighting next day at Williamsburg proved so severe that he rode to the front and had both divisions to follow him.

Near Williamsburg, Magruder had, some months before, selected a line of battle across the Peninsula four or five miles long, on which he had at a few places some slight intrenchments with slashings of timber in front, and, about the centre, an enclosed fort of some size, called Fort Magruder.

As the rear of our column came into Williamsburg during the afternoon of the 4th, the enemy's cavalry suddenly appeared so near to this fort, that Sommes's tired infantry brigade had