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I therefore determined to push down the north bank of the Mattapony far enough to enable me to send these impediments directly to West Point, where I anticipated finding some of our gunboats and transports, that could carry all to the North. Following this plan, we proceeded through Walkerton to King and Queen Court House, and bivouacked in its vicinity the night of the 18th.
General Lee had taken up his position on the south bank of one of the four tributaries of the Mattapony. These four streams are known as the Mat, Ta, Po, and Nye Rivers, and bear the same relation to the main stream that the fingers of the open hand do to the wrist. General Lee was behind the Po, which is next to the Nye, the northernmost of these water-courses.
From Jamestown, settlements gradually spread up and down both banks of the James and its tributaries, the Elizabeth, Nansemond, Appomattox, and the Chickahominy. Then came the settlements along the York and its tributaries, the Mattapony and the Pamunkey; and finally, along the banks of the Rappahannock and the Potomac.
The Americans refusing to descend in front of Portsmouth, a portion of the English army embarks and proceeds by water to Yorktown and Gloucester. General Lafayette takes a position at the Fork of Pamunkey and Mattapony River, having a detached corps upon both sides of York River.
At last, when "brought to great distress" through hunger, they broke through the encircling English with their wives and children, and vanished into the forest. Making their way up the Maryland side of the river, they crossed over to Virginia, and began a series of raids upon the frontier plantations on the upper Rappahannock and Mattapony rivers. Within a few days they had killed sixty persons.
West Point was simply a tongue, or spit of land, dividing the Mattapony from the Pamunkey river at their junction; a few houses were built upon the shallow, and some wharves, half demolished, marked the terminus of the York and Richmond railroad. A paltry water-battery was the sole defence.
I therefore determined to push down the north bank of the Mattapony far enough to enable me to send these impediments directly to West Point, where I anticipated finding some of our gunboats and transports, that could carry all to the North. Following this plan, we proceeded through Walkerton to King and Queen Court House, and bivouacked in its vicinity the night of the 18th.
Owing to the necessity of caring for a large number of wounded and of guarding several hundred prisoners, to say nothing of an army of colored people of all ages and of both sexes who joined the procession, it was necessary to take a tortuous course which traversed the Spottsylvania battle ground, touched at Bowling Green, followed the north bank of the Mattapony river, reaching King and Queen Courthouse June 18.
That when he had said all he desired to say to them, he made a move to leave the ketch in his boat, intending to return to Mattapony House; but they who were in the cabin prevented him, and would not let him go.
The whole command was drawn in by noon of the 22d, and that day it crossed the Pamunkey by Merritt's reconstructed bridge, marching to Ayletts, on the Mattapony River, the same night.
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