Official Records of the Rebellion

[312]

No. 19.

Report of Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter, U. S. Army, as Director of the Siege of Yorktown, from April 7—May 5.

Introduction - Involved in construction work - Placed in command of siege - Commends regiments and individuals

The troops were employed to the 17th, in connection with those of other divisions of the corps, in opening roads, building bridges, guarding the front, and in occasional reconnaissances. On the 11th the enemy, after driving in the pickets of Hamilton’s division and destroying the house in the peach -orchard to the left of the Yorktown road, attacked my picket line, but was repulsed by a section of Weeden’s Rhode Island Battery and the Twenty-second Massachusetts Volunteers, under Lieutenant-Colonel Griswold. My picket line was immediately re-established, but Hamilton’s did not connect till the 17th, under Colonel Lansing. On the 13th an attack on the right of my line was handsomely met and repulsed by the Twelfth New York Volunteers, under Major Barnum. A close and thorough reconnaissance on the 25th, made by that excellent officer of the army, Col. Jesse A. Gove, with his regiment, the Twenty-second Massachusetts Volunteers, confirmed his former reports of the 5th and 16th that the Warwick was not fordable, the banks swampy, and the dams near its headwaters, on account of artificial obstructions, unapproachable in face of the enemy on the opposite banks. The reports of casualties in these affairs have been forwarded, as well as the result of the reconnaissance.

Reconnaissances in the balloon had materially aided me, as well as other officers, in obtaining information of the strength of the enemy’s position, which was to a great degree confirmed on the 11th by an elevated and extensive view of the defenses of Yorktown, the whole line of the Warwick, and of the enemy’s bivouacs, obtained while accidentally breaking loose while ascending. I desire here to remark that the balloon can be made a most useful accessory to reconnaissances, and especially valuable in an extensive battle, if the observer be intelligent and educated for the military profession. Without that professional education the relations of works or bodies of troops to each other, and the movements of troops or trains of artillery or wagons, and many other facts of the greatest moment, may and often will be unnoticed. A signal officer, or, better still, the magnetic telegraph, should accompany the aeronaut.

On the 18th of April, the necessary approaches to the first parallel [313] and the bridges being nearly completed, the first parallel and some of the batteries were commenced, and their completion pushed as rapidly as the supply of tools, &c., would permit. From that time to the 27th the loss in my division from the fire of the enemy was very small, and was generally caused by the Sharpshooters.

Introduction - Involved in construction work - Placed in command of siege - Commends regiments and individuals