Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

At this time General J. B. Magruder, whom we have already met at Big Bethel and the burning of Hampton, was in command of eleven thousand men on the Virginia Peninsula, between the James and York rivers, with his Headquarters at Yorktown, which he had fortified. Magruder had intended to make his line of defense as far down the Peninsula as Big Bethel, at positions in front of Howard's and Young's Mills, and at Ship Point, on the York River. But when he perceived the strong force gathered at Fortress Monroe, he felt too weak to make a stand on his proposed line, and he prepared to receive McClellan on a second line, on Warwick River. He left a small body of troops on his first line and at Ship Point, and distributed his remaining force along a front of about thirteen miles. At Yorktown, on Gloucester Point opposite, and on Mulberry Island, on the James River,¹ he placed fixed garrisons, amounting in the aggregate to six thousand men, so that along a line of thirteen miles in front of McClellan's great army, there were only about five thousand Confederate soldiers behind incomplete earth-works. General McClellan estimated Magruder's force at from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men, while the eight thousand troops under Huger at Norfolk, he supposed to be fifteen thousand in number.

When General McClellan arrived at Fortress Monroe, he found fifty-eight thousand men and one hundred cannon of his army there. Large numbers of troops were continually arriving. Perceiving the importance of marching upon Magruder before he could be re-enforced by Johnston, and hoping by rapid movements to drive or capture him and press on to Richmond, McClellan put his whole force then in readiness at Fortress Monroe in motion up the Peninsula, on the morning of the 3d of April. He had counted upon the co-operation of the remnant of the naval force in Hampton Roads in the reduction of the Confederate water-batteries on the York and James rivers, and Flag-officer Goldsborough had offered to extend such assistance in storming the works at Yorktown and Gloucester, provided the latter position should be first turned by the army. He was reluctant to weaken his force, for the Merrimack was hourly expected, with renewed strength, and the James River was blockaded by Confederate gun-boats on its bosom and Confederate batteries on its shore.

McClellan's invading force moved in two columns, one along the old Yorktown road and the other by the Warwick road. These were led respectively by Generals Heintzelman and Keyes. The former, on the right, led the divisions of Generals Fitz John Porter and Hamilton, of the Third Corps, and Sedgwick's-division of the Second Corps; while Keyes led the divisions of Generals Couch and W. F. Smith, of the Fourth Corps. They pressed forward, and on the following day the right, accompanied by McClellan, was at Big Bethel, and the Commander-in-chief made his Headquarters at a house very near

McClellan's Headquarters.