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[5] of April, all the troops which had not been withdrawn from General McClellan's command were landed upon the peninsula. During this short period of time, four hundred ships, steamers, and sailing vessels, had been collected and taken to Alexandria, and had transported a distance of eighty leagues, 109,419 men, 14,502 animals, 44 batteries, with all the immense materiel which generally follows such an army, leaving nothing behind them except nine stranded lighters and eight drowned mules. McClellan had not waited for the end of this operation to take the field. Out of the one hundred thousand men, or thereabouts, he was to have under his command,1he found on the day of his arrival fifty-eight thousand, accompanied with one hundred cannon, in a condition to march. The remainder had either not landed or were without the necessary transportation to take part in a forward movement. Many teams were yet wanting for the numerous wagons, without which troops could not venture among the marshy roads which they were to encounter. The army was put in motion on the 4th of April, and arrived before Yorktown and Warwick Creek the next day without having seen the enemy. The latter had hastily abandoned the few works erected at Big Bethel, in the firm belief that the Federals, who had control of the sea as far as Yorktown, could easily turn all those defences. This first march was not accomplished without some difficulty. The roads were in a deplorable condition. The maps were bad, which was even worse than not having any. They had relied upon those which the officers stationed at Fortress Monroe had taken all winter to prepare, and the several columns, thus misled by false information, could hardly preserve their order of march. Deceived by these incorrect charts as to the direction of
1 This was the status of the Army April 1, 1862:
| Present for active service. | On special service or on sick list. | Absent. | Total. | |
| Second corps, Sumner | 26,778 | 1,129 | 3,130 | 31,037 |
| Third corps, Heintzelmann | 33,047 | 2,795 | 3,010 | 38,852 |
| Fourth corps, Keyes | 32,924 | 1,874 | 3,112 | 37,910 |
| Regular infantry | 3,905 | 237 | 623 | 4,765 |
| Regular cavalry | 2,001 | 170 | 370 | 3,141 |
| Reserve artillery | 2,731 | 175 | 210 | 3,116 |
| Of different corps | 910 | 73 | 161 | 1,144 |
| —— | —— | —— | ||
| Total | 102,896 | 6,453 | 10,616 | 119,965 |
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1876.
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