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Updated: June 4, 2025
McClellan's advance was, therefore, made with the utmost "conservatism," enabling General Johnston to collect back of Magruder the army that was finally to drive McClellan back to his base.
He accordingly called on Magruder for two brigades and drew in from the line of the Arkansas the division of John G. Walker. However, this concentration became unnecessary and was given up the instant Smith learned that Banks had crossed the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi and had sat down before Port Hudson.
Magruder, with the other of his forces, was far on the road towards Williamsburg, and we had to fall in his rear and follow his footsteps over roads, now simply impassable to any but foot soldiers. We kept up the march until we had left Yorktown ten miles in our rear, after marching a distance of nearly thirty miles, and all night and day.
While Hill was retiring, Huger, and then Magruder, came into action on the right. It had been reported to Lee that the enemy was beginning to fall back.
All the while he was calling lustily for reinforcements from Washington. When Magruder was ready he retired with his little army and McClellan's opportunity was gone. At Antietam he won a brilliant victory, but he failed to follow it up. There was a chance to annihilate the Confederate army and end the war. To do that was nearly as important as it had been to win the victory.
Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and the battle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at White Oak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayed Huger; for Magruder, but in the tangle of wood and swamp Magruder, too, went astray; for Holmes, but Fitz John Porter held Holmes in check.
Within the knowledge of my troops, there had gone on formerly the transfer of organized bodies of ex-Confederates to Mexico, in aid of the Imperialists, and at this period it was known that there was in preparation an immigration scheme having in view the colonizing, at Cordova and one or two other places, of all the discontented elements of the defunct Confederacy Generals Price, Magruder, Maury, and other high personages being promoters of the enterprise, which Maximilian took to readily.
"II. The divisions under Generals Huger and Magruder will hold their position in front of the enemy against attack, and make such demonstrations, Thursday, as to discover his operations. Should opportunity offer, the feint will be converted into a real attack. The main body will be held in reserve, with scouts well extended to the front and left.
Magruder soon found that it would be impossible with the force at his command to hold the line he had proposed, and a large body of negroes and troops were set to work to throw up defenses between Yorktown and a point on the Warwick River thirteen and a half miles away.
As it was most important to clear the peninsula between the two rivers before Magruder should receive strong reinforcements, a portion of the troops were at once landed, and on the 4th of April 56,000 men and 100 guns disembarked and started on their march against Yorktown.
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