Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/165

Rh frigate United States had been raised at the navy yard and prepared for a schoolship and for harbor defense, with a deck battery of nineteen 32-pounders and 9-inch columbiads; the frigate Merrimac (the famous ram Virginia of 1862) had been raised and was in the dry dock, and arrangements had been made for raising the Germantown and the Plymouth.

Magruder reported on the 16th, from Yorktown, that he had 5,550 effective men; that he should have 4,500 more to make his line secure, and 15 heavy guns. General Huger reported, from Norfolk, on the 17th, that the Federals were placing artillery on the Ripraps, and on Saturday afternoon the command at Sewell's point was surprised by having eight or ten shells from that artillery exploded in and around their battery.

On the 18th, General Lee, as Magruder had requested, directed Lieut. R. R. Carter, commanding the steam tender Teazer, to co-operate with the batteries on Jamestown island in the defense of James river. He informed Colonel Magruder that requisition had been made for eight 32-pounders and four 42-pounder carronades for the defense of the land approaches to Yorktown, and for four boats, for service in York river, capable of transporting 400 or 500 men each; and that Captain Whittle was authorized to send to Yorktown the guns intended for Gloucester point, if not immediately wanted at that place. To Hon. W. C. Parks, of the Virginia convention, he wrote that the supply of arms for Virginia volunteers was so limited that he had suggested to the governor a method of procuring some old flint-lock muskets, which, if successful, he hoped would furnish the means of giving arms to the men in Grayson county and others that were much in want.

Colonel Magruder reported on the 18th, from Bethel church, that he then occupied that post with the Second Louisiana, to which he had attached the York and Warwick companies, two batteries of artillery and some cavalry, and had placed a Georgia regiment in support; and next day he wrote, that threatened by an advance of the enemy, via Warwick Court House, he had evacuated Bethel and marched for Yorktown. He learned, afterward, that the enemy had only come out to procure horses and mules and had then returned; and he found his men much fatigued and dispirited by this constant