April 4, 1862 (Thursday): The Seige of Yorktown Nears

Confederate Water Batteries at Nelson Church (Library of Congress)

HEADQUARTERS,
Lee's Farm, April 5, 1862.

General LEE,
Richmond:
    The enemy's pickets advanced in sight of Yorktown, but it is now raining,and I think there will be no attack to-day.
    I have made my arrangements to fight with my small force, but without the slightest hope of success.
If I am re-enforced in time with 10,000 men I think I can block the way to Richmond.



J. BANKHEAD MAGRUDER,
Major-General, Commanding.

Official Records, Series I., Vol. 11, Part 3, Page 422.

Two divisions of Heintzelman's III Corp reached Fort Monroe on March 23, but transportation shortages delayed their start for two weeks.  McClellan wanted to envelope Yorktown by the York River, but found out on April 4 that President Lincoln was holding McDowell's Corp back as a kind of collateral to insure the safety of Washington.  The Navy didn't feel they could silence the water batteries of Yorktown and Cloucester  to permit an amphibious envelopment up to West Point.  And the maps he had been provided did not indicate the extent to which the Warwick River (where Magruder had erected fortifications) would obstruct his advance.  Magruder, though a bit of an eccentric, would prove himself expert at playing on the fears of McClellan by exaggerated shows of force along his line.