[114] Sumner could get up his advance divisions and make dispositions for attack, darkness ensued, and the men bivouacked in the woods. During the night a heavy rain came on, rendering the roads almost impassable.
In the morning, Hooker's division had taken position on the left, and Smith's on the right; the other divisions had not yet come up. The attack was opened by General Hooker in front of Fort Magruder. Having cleared the space in his front, he advanced two batteries1 to within seven hundred yards of the fort, and, by nine o'clock, silenced its fire. But now the enemy began to develop strongly on his left,2 and, as re-enforcements arrived, made a series of determined attacks with the view of turning that flank. These attacks were made with constantly increasing pressure, and bore heavily on Hooker. That officer had taken care to open communication with the Yorktown road, on which fresh troops were to come up; yet, notwithstanding the repeated requests made by him for the assistance he sorely needed, none came.3 He was therefore compelled to engage the enemy during the whole day; and, between three and four o'clock, his ammunition began to give out, so that some of his shattered brigades were forced to confront the enemy with no other cartridges than those they gathered from the boxes of their fallen comrades.4 At length, between four and five o'clock, Kearney's division, which had been ordered in the morning to go to the support of Hooker, but had met great delay in passing the masses of troops and trains that obstructed the single deep muddy defile, arrived. Learning the condition of Hooker's men, Kearney took up his division at the double-quick, attacked
