The summary provides the key details from the document in 3 sentences: The document describes a Union reconnaissance of Confederate defenses at Yorktown, Virginia in April 1862 led by Gen. Winfield Hancock. During the operation, the 6th Maine and 5th Wisconsin encountered Confederate pickets and drove them back to their rifle pits, capturing some. However, the Confederate regiments they encountered in camp were already drilling in an open field. One Union soldier from the 6th Maine, George Riley, was killed during the engagement, becoming the first loss for the regiment.

2. After months of preparation, the offensive land-campaign of the Union is now about to begin ….
Following the retreat in early March, 1862, of Confederate forces from Manassas and positions west, Gen Geo. B.
McClellan, Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army (for a short time longer !) is convinced there has been a leak
of the key details of his “brilliant” Urbanna plan to destroy the Confederate Army in Virginia. The plan was for a
rapid marine deployment onto the docks at Urbanna, along the south bank of the Rappahannock, then a crossing
of the Middle Peninsula, to about West Point on the York river: a move, which, if successful would capture the rail
depot of the Richmond and York River RR, at West Point, cutting off the Confederate Army’s supply lines, and
isolating the forces of “Gen. John Bankhead Magruder on the Lower Peninsula! Now, however, the rebel retreat
from Manassas has thwarted the “Urbanna plan” – which President Lincoln disliked anyway. His own plan -- the
Occuquan plan -- would have the Union Army ascend that river and move against Confederate positions at
Manassas. But the rebs have moved !!! (See Last Issue – YANKEE SCOUT – Monitor vs. Merrimac(k) !!
Both plans are now moot. McClellan must now use an alternate plan,
and the “Peninsular Campaign” is his Plan “C”: to make a marine
landing of his Army at the Union stronghold of Fortress Monroe,
transport troops to Newport News, Virginia at the tip of the Peninsula,
and engage the enemy: slogging it out against the Confederate Army,
amongst the saltmarshes, flooded rivers and swamplands, inch by
inch, over a long, hard 53 miles toward Richmond! President Lincoln
approves of this plan. This “Lower Peninsula” between the York
and James rivers is now to become the 1862 Seat of War …
But this soggy Virginia tidal terrain is nothing like the chaparral plains
of Mexico – where McClellan cut his teeth and mastered the arts of
warfare! U.S. infantry and cavalry tactics developed on the desert
battlefields of the Mexican war, are going to prove almost useless here
– and McClellan knows it. But who will understand now how his
supreme genius has been compromised? The injustice is exquisite !!
McClellan, his “A-game” Urbanna Plan taken away, blames
Lincoln’s vetting process for what he supposes to be a leak of the plan
that cued the Confederate withdrawal. He is certain NOW that his
own Commander in Chief is “the original gorilla” intellectually, and
that he has thwarted the one opportunity which Providence had
destined for McClellan, to demonstrate his military “brilliance” on
the world stage, and bring the Confederate Army to its knees in a
single masterful operation !! Then, as the Peninsular Campaign is
about to launch, President Lincoln demotes McClellan …
Thus, not just the Confederates: but Gen. George McClellan himself
is now inwardly seething with contempt against Lincoln: and has
reached the point of brooding some sabotage of his own Union Army
advance. Starting at Yorktown, and throughout the Peninsular
Campaign Gen. McClellan is actively resisting Union Army successes,
for the sake of taking vengeance against Lincoln. And the Union
soldiers will pay for the conduct of a General whom Lincoln’s
secretary, John Hay, would later call ….
C.S.A. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder
U.S.A. Gen. George B. McClellan

3. Now let’s pick-up where we left off in the Last Issue of YANKEE SCOUT !!
On March 8, 1862, that most momentous engagement of the ironclads, the
U.S.S. Monitor vs. C.S.S. Virginia … occurred in Hampton Roads -- that
strangely named inland sea, where the James river pauses before joining with
the salt waters of Chesapeake bay !! Along these shores the nomenclature
recalls the very earliest English colonial settlements: Point Henry (for King
Henry VIII) Elizabeth City (for Queen Elizabeth), Jamestown on the James
River (for King James I) like Yorktown on the York River – named for the
favored Duchy of York! The Warwick River? And don’t forget Virginia
itself -- also for Good Queen Bess. Others such as Hampton take their place
with this royal company: Hampton Court being a royal palace favored by
Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, both. The English were such a sea-faring
people, that stretches of ocean were called by them “roads” – hence
“Hampton Roads” is a body of water – but it suggests a favored royal seat.
This is Shakespeare country … but
The March 9th
success of the Monitor in this magnificent marine duel has forced the Merrimac(k) to retreat to
Norfolk for repairs. But, with the crippling of their ironclad, the Confederates have also lost the only marine
defenses of Gosport or Norfolk Naval Yard, and while the Merrimac(k) is put back into operation, she is not going
to outmaneuver the Monitor. On May 1, Jeff Davis orders the Confederates to abandon Norfolk harbor, and on
May 11th
the Merrimac(k) is exploded and burned by the Rebels -- and lies now finally scuttled.

4. The C.S.S. Virginia was a “one-off” concept or prototype ironclad, and the Confederacy had no capability of
launching another like it: the equipment and engineers that had built the steam engines for the Merrimac(k), were
at West Point Foundry and otherwise strictly in the North-east – and while the south had good engineers, Tredegar
Iron Works did not have the capability of up-to-date forging or machining equipment, and was too dependent on a
slave force for its skilled labor, to come close to replicating the Merrimack’s fine screw-drive steam engines, to create
another ironclad. Let’s say that the South had nothing comparable: it could steal, but it could not create. Indeed,
as discussed in the Last Issue of YANKEE SCOUT, a Congressional Medal of Honor was probably due to Comm
Charles. S. McCauley for his remaining on duty at Gosport, while many Union officers and sailors deserted under
Confederate attack, as meanwhile McCauley executed direct orders from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, in
torching the Gosport yards. For if all the vessels at anchor there had fallen into Rebel hands, it is probable there
would have been a small fleet of ironclads, sufficient to launch repeated naval attacks on remaining U.S. vessels,
while also defending the Gosport shipyard as their repair and resupply base. Which vessels?
The USS Pennsylvania, USS Germantown, USS Raritan, USS Columbia and USS Dolphin were all burned;
The USS Delaware, USS Columbus, USS Plymouth and USS Merrimack were burned and then sunk;
The USF United States was abandoned, captured, and later rechristened the CSRS Confederate States;
All of these 10 vessels would have been Confederate-flagged. Imagine a fleet of ironclads: The C.S.S. Old
Dominion, the C.S.S. Dixie, the C.S.S. Ol’ Virginny, etc. However, instead of recognizing McCauley, a
Congressional inquiry was opened into the matter. The New York Times reported in his obituary of May 23, 1869:
The Congressional Committee appointed to investigate the affair failing to exonerate him entirely from
blame in the matter he felt that his honor as an officer had been wounded, his reputation blemished, the
effect of which was to plunge him into the deepest melancholy and causing disease of the heart of which
he died. Under the Act of Congress of July 16, 1862 Commodore McCauley was placed on the retired
list having served his country in the Navy for over half a century.
Thanks to the Monitor, the removal of the Merrimac(k) has now re-opened the York River to navigation by Union
gun-boats which arrive and ascend the river in early April, unmolested by the Confederate ironclad -- so that
Yorktown itself is now within range of their artillery, as are Magruder’s batteries across the river at Gloucester: thus,
bombardment of Confederate defenses begins. But only after May 11th
, when the Merrimac(k) is finally dispatched
by the Rebs themselves, is the James River finally cleared, for other Union gunboats in the fleet to move upriver
for the attack on Richmond. Will they make it ? See YANKEE SCOUT – Stranger in Richmond – Fugitive Slave!!
Ground troops – including Pvt. Drew’s 6th
Maine infantry – now begin moving up the Peninsula toward Yorktown.

5. “We moved out to Newport News [ Virginia ] – a point of land, the James River on one side and the bay on the
other, here we pitched tents and began to drill – 100,000 men, 44,000 animals, ambulances, batterys, wagons,
pontoons, telegraph equipage, pioneers [?], engineers, ammunition and supplies all transferred from Alexander
[Alexandria] in less than a week.” [ See Last Issue of YANKEE SCOUT !! – Ed.]
Detail from Sneden, Position of Union Army (Library of Congress -- http://www.loc.gov/item/gvhs01.vhs00244/)
The troops, weapons and supplies were rapidly transported by steamer, from Fort Monroe to the new Army camp
at Newport News, from which ground assault will begin. However, C.S.A. Gen. Johnston, advised of the buildup
of troop strength at the tip of the peninsula, are uncertain as to its significance. Is it a feint? A mere show of force?
Or the staging area for a marine assault up the James River? See Edwin Fishel, The Secret War for the Union, the
Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War, Chap. 6 “Outnumbered on the Peninsula.” (1996).

6. Getting the Capt. Out of Mud
“The 6th
Me. made a reconnaissance up the James River we came to a tricky slough – some 6 or 7 [feet] wide.
[This is probably Watts Creek, circled in blue on the map below – Ed. ] The tide was out, the bottom of the creek
was mud, a rail fence a short distance in front – some of the [men] jumped the ditch, got rails and put them across
the ditch to walk on. Capt. Carey broak a rail off, fell off into the mud he had on a fine new uniform his canteen
full of red-eye from he had taken a number of swigs.”
“Johnney Wailing a short red-headed Irishman shouted, “Oh Lieut. Roach, the Capt. getting drown!”
“So that he is!” Roach
call[ed] for some of the men
to come and get the Capt.
[P. 38] out. 4 of us got
down in the mud [ and ]
threw the captain out and
scraped the mud from him.
“He cursed everything black
and blue, and ended by
exclaiming, “Now look at
my new uniform!”, [and]
that was the end of his
campaign. He resigned in a
short time and Lieut. Roach
was promoted to Captaincy.
“The right of the Regt. [
being inland ] did not have
the obstruction we had
[referring to the sloughs] and
had got ahead, but they
haulted until the men came
up then we moved towards
the woods expecting every
minute to be fired on, but
we found none – got back to
camp at 2 o’cl A.M.
“Then in the afternoon I
took a swim in the James
River and washed my
cloathes. While waiting for
them to dry, Dan & I
borrowed a punt and oyster
rake and raked up oysters
enough for supper for the
tents crew.”

7. “The 1st
of April we moved forward to find the foe, got into a swamp water up to our knees – then we ran against
the pickets who gave us a shot or two and left – no one was hurt, and we camped in the timber. The next day we
were in the vicinity of Warwick Creek [ now Warwick River – Ed.] that being the right of the [ Rebel ] line
extending across the peninsula from York River to the James River.”
Robert Knox Sneden – Sketch of the Lines at Yorktown, Va.,
April, 1862. Pvt. Drew will report that the 6th
Maine is encamped
near Warwick County Court House, shown in the detail at right,
with Gen Keyes Corps camped in front. However, Smith’s
division was assigned to Franklin’s Corps …

8. Death of First
Man of Reg’t
“On the 5th
[ sic: 6th
] of April,
the 5th
Wisconsin + 6th
Maine
made a reconnoissance of the
Rebs. line under one of
McClelland’s aides [ See
below: this aide was an Army
Engineer doing field recon of
Yorktown defenses -- Ed.] …
and lost the first man in action
by the Rebs.
“George Rilley the best
looking boy in Co. K, our best
tenor singer, shot through the
heart.
“We made a rush on the
Rebs pickets, they went into a
line of rifle pits. We went
over the rifle pits after them
and found ourselves in their
camp – their Regmts were out
in a field drilling.”
“Steve Scofield our little drummer had taken a rifle and joined the Co. he went into a Rebs. tent and captured a
small jug of whiskey. We were attacking the foe in front when McLelland’s aide halted us and got us back over
the works. We packed Rilley [P. 39] and the next day gave him a soldier’s burial.1
For the excellent behavior of
the 6th
Maine on the occasion, it received the thanks of the Commander in Chief [ Gen. McClellan appears to be
referenced – Ed.] The Gen’l in person gave us a talk which made me feel as if I had grown an inch taller.
“Denbow, our Indian2
said it made an Indian a White man.”
EDITOR’S NOTE
Pvt. Drew’s terse narrative reports a surprise Union Army assault on Confederate defensive works at Yorktown!
Confederate pickets were apparently captured and taken prisoner, but a regimental camp behind the enemy lines
was empty “their Regmts were out in the field drilling.” Then an actual engagement occurs. What follows in this
issue of YANKEE SCOUT is an examination of Drew’s brief narrative, in comparison to other source documents
-- beginning with Gen Winfield S. Hancock’s Official Report ….
1
George Riley was from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Army records show he was wounded April 9, and died April 12,
1861. See, Annual Report of the Adjutant General for the State of Maine, (1862), Appendix “D,” p. 191.
2
Henry C. Denbo was a Native American Indian of the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy tribe, was listed in the 1860
census as resident of Lubec, Maine. Pvt. Denbo, became a close comrade and scouting companion of Pvt. Drew.
See, e.g., YANKEE SCOUT -- White Oak Swamp !! and YANKEE SCOUT – Malvern Hill !! etc.

9. CAMP IN FRONT OF WARWICK COURT HOUSE
CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report that in obedience to instructions from division headquarter I
yesterday morning proceeded with the 5th
Wisconsin and 6th
Maine regiments of Volunteers to make a
reconnaissance from this point to the point of the creek, forming the line of the enemy’s defenses, until I
met our own troops coming from the direction of Yorktown. Lieutenant Merrill [See below – Ed.], of
the Engineers, and Lieutenant Bowen, Topographical Engineer, ordered to report to me.
We found the enemy in possession of the whole length of the stream, our skirmishers meeting the
enemy’s pickets at every point on this side of the river and driving them into it, and in places across it. In
each case field works of the enemy were developed, all, with one exception, having artillery in them.
The stream is a succession of pools, formed by damming the river at different points, rendering it, it is
understood, unfordable, the enemy’s pickets retiring by small bridges. The banks of the stream on the
other side appear generally to be higher than on this side. In one case, however, at some chimneys in an
open field, at about 400 yards distance, the ground is higher than their battery opposite, mounting one
gun, but there are evidences of another work behind this, sheltered by the woods, and there are
appearances of ranges being cut in the woods and two guns there. This is the point where Lieutenant
Comstock met my column and made a reconnaissance, covered by one of my regiments, the Sixth
Maine, under Colonel Burnham.”
EDITOR’S NOTE
It seems to me most likely, that the location Gen. Hancock is referring to, where he transfers command of the 6th
Maine to Lt. Comstock, is shown on Sneden’s Official Map of the Union Works in Front of Yorktown, above, at
the farm under the arrow: where Sneden’s notes indicate “burnt house” and showing two “chimneys.” Just as
described by Hancock, the Confederate battery is directly opposite, and indeed behind the battery, in the very
upper-left corner of the detail, are additional “batteries” -- although the word can barely be made out at this
resolution: The batteries are “sheltered by the woods” precisely as Hancock describes. The original map is at the
Library of Congress, and a high-res image can be viewed online here http://www.loc.gov/item/gvhs01.vhs00246/

10. Per Hancock, we learn that, Drew’s regiment the 6th
Maine, --
now without their sister regiment, the 5th
Wisconsin -- are
assigned to a “Lieutenant Comstock” – the same figure whom
Drew mentioned as “one of McClellan’s aids” and conducting
field reconnaissance of the Confederate defensive line at
Yorktown. The lieutenant who assumed command of the 6th
Maine on this April 66h
, was Lt. Cyrus Ballou Comstock, a
member of the West Point graduating class of 1855, and a 1st
Lieutenant serving on the engineering corps of Brig.-Gen.
Barnard, along with Lt. Henry Larcom Abbott, who prepared
the map resulting, Official Plan of the Siege of Yorktown,
available here: http://www.loc.gov/item/99446373/ and
further detailed below. On the credits of this map, “Lt. C. B.
Comstock” is identified as a contributor, etc.
The particular reconnaissance described by Drew (and also Gen. Hancock) is referenced in Gen. Barnard’s Report
of the Engineer and Artillery Operations of the Army of the Potomac, p. 149 (1863 ) for Sunday, April 6th
, where
he describes the prescribed route of the recon, as follows:
“The Chief Engineer went up to the front with Lieutenant McAlester and reconnoitered ravines in front
of Yorktown, and gave general instructions to Lieutenant Merrill to reconnoiter Warwick river to connect
with Lieutenant Comstock – [and orders to] Comstock to reconnoiter from Wynn’s Mill down to connect
with Merrill –to Lieutenant McAlester to works in front – also to Lieutenant Abbot to survey ravines.
The orders basically call for Comstock to begin at the Confederate right defensive works, at Wynn’s Mill, and work
his way along the Warwick river north-easterly, to meet up with Merrill working his way west from the Confederate
left under Yorktown. Wynn’s Mill with a series of Confederate fortifications along the Warwick is shown in the
detail below, which also highlights the fact that the entire course of the Warwick River has been dammed – by four
dams -- and diverted, flooding the drainage area around its ordinary riverbed, into a saltwater or tidal marsh of
between 200 to 300 yards wide. See J. G. Barnard’s Official Report, p. 140 Lt. Comstock eventually filed three
reports on, or based upon, this initial reconnaissance …

11. “The creek here is about 1,200 yards distant from the Yorktown road. The Fourteenth Alabama3
was stationed
there and according to the statement of four soldiers of that regiment, taken by Sixth Maine Volunteers, it
numbered 1,070 men when it left Richmond, a few days ago.”
3
The 14TH
Alabama, Col. Indigs,[ sic: per Pinkerton ! – Ed] Brig-Gen. Pryor, Gen. Longstreet’s Division.

12. EDITOR’S NOTE
After a rendezvous with Lt. Comstock, McClellan’s engineering aide – at “a place in an open field having burned
chimneys.” (plural) identified in Gen. Barnard’s report as Wynn’s Mill (now charred remains thereof) the 6th
Maine
regiment is detached from Hancock’s command and assigned to Lt. Comstock, who is performing professional
engineering reconnaissance –discussed above.
However, not so very long after assignment to Comstock, the 6th
Maine, advancing under the Confederate batteries,
has driven the confederate pickets off their line, gone over the works, and stormed into the empty encampment of
the Fourteenth Alabama regiment, stationed there. According to Drew, “their regiment were out in the field
drilling,” – and this seems exactly corroborated by Hancock’s Official Report -- which, after all, we are beginning
to suspect may have been drafted with Pvt. Drew narrating the gallant details from the other side of the table.
Then, there is an interesting thing happens. Apparently, after storming the enemy’s batteries, and capturing their
pickets, and occupying their camp – and after Pvt. Steve Scofield has “captured a small jug of whiskey” – then and
only then do the Rebels come on at the Yankee invaders: taking their whiskey was the last straw! Drew says:
“We were attacking the foe in front when McLelland’s aide halted us and got us back over the works.”

13. “Successful Charge of the Co. H. 1st
Massachusetts Regiment (Captain Carruth) on a Rebel Redan,
before Yorktown, April 26, Leslie’s Illustrated News, (May 24, 1862) p. 92
The scramble of the 6th
Maine over the miserable works in front of the Fourteenth Alabama encampment at
Yorktown, would have looked much like the image above – which depicts another such charge during the “siege.”
That charge, like the incursion of the 6th
Maine, for lack of follow-through by Gen. McClellan, amounted to nothing.
In the attack illustrated above, of April 26, 1862, the 1st
Massachusetts, Co. H, took fourteen prisoners, lost three
killed and thirteen wounded. See Bishop’s Concise History of the Civil War, p. 54 (1864). In the case of the 6th
Maine assault related here for probably the first time, a standard Civil War–era failure of communication stymied
the assault which Lt. Comstock and Col. Burnham were prepared to make on the Confederate defenses of the
Fourteenth Alabama – as their mounted messenger, Maj. Benjamin Harris, negotiated the swamped farmlands
carrying a desperate message for Hancock, to authorize an engagement: he was intercepted by Rebel scouts. Gen.
Hancock himself was still on his own reconnaissance with the 5th
Wisconsin on some remote road – and never got
the message. Thus, Lt. Comstock had to recall the 6th
Maine …..
But attack was practicable ….
And McClellan had the proof in hand. READ ON !!

14. During the afternoon other movements of troops were observed marching down the stream behind the
works, while the regiment was holding the crest of the creek. The dam there, by the statement of this
colonel, is from 15 to 20 rods in length and about 12 feet broad. It is believed that yesterday the point
could have been easily taken. The colonel [Hiram Burnham] of this regiment sent me a message by his
major [Maj. Harris ] asking permission to take it, which, however, I did not receive, being at the time
with the other regiment, [the 5th
Wisconsin] overlooking the lower two works. I merely mention this to
show the practicability of it at that time, for I imagine the difficulty would have been in crossing the creek
and in maintaining possession after we had taken it, for we had no artillery or intrenching tool with us.
Major Harris, who took the message, with an escort of two men, meeting a scouting party of seven of the
enemy, was prevented from communicating. He, however, by a ruse (commanding a deployment of
men) and the fire of the two men, causing them to fall back, escaped.”
Less than a week later, perhaps inspired by camp news of the overcoming of the works by the 6th
Maine, another
grass-roots assault occurred against the Yorktown works – when an attack of the 2nd
, 3rd
, 4th
and 5th
Vermont
regiments, covered by Ayre’s battery, moving in the vicinity of rebel entrenchments at Lee’s Mill, at Dam No. 1,
waded the flooded course of the Warwick in waters waist deep: although they were re-enforced by eight other
companies, they were driven back by the Confederates, losing one hundred men, inflicting only 75 killed of the
enemy. See, the excellent book by Zeller, The Second Vermont Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 1861-1864 (2002).
Sneden does represent this engagement, on his Map of the Lines at Yorktown, Virginia, April, 1862 :
Then, two weeks thereafter, on April 25, there will be an assault on the “Red Battery” under Yorktown. Sneden
made a separate map for this attack: https://www.loc.gov/resource/gvhs01.vhs00081/ -- But nowhere on any of Gen.
McClellan’s official cartography is there even a suggestion that actual military action ever took place.

15. The military term “salient” or “salient angle” recurs in the history of
the battles of the Civil War – identifying a key point along an enemy
line, at which their defenses are potentially most vulnerable to assault,
or at which a successful assault would have the greatest effect in
destabilizing and routing the enemy. Such a “salient” is not going to
be the safest place to attack – quite the opposite: it is likely to be
heavily fortified and quite furiously defended!! To Lincoln, the
Confederate salient in 1862 was still at Manassas, and his Occuquan
plan was intended to exploit their vulnerability there. He was right !
Easily the most well-known of many “salients” during the Civil War,
is the “mule-shoe salient” that developed along Confederate lines at
the fringe of the Wilderness woods, during the Battle of Spottyslvania
C.H. The “mule shoe” was the target of a famous Union Army
charge under Lt. Emory Upton, on May 10, 1864; and again on May
12: at which point it earned the sobriquet (or nickname), of the
Bloody Angle. Pvts. Denbo and Drew would be there ! Read about
it in YANKEE SCOUT – Spottsylvania & the Bloody Angle!!
In front of Yorktown, along the waterfront of the Warwick River
defenses, if there is a “salient”…. it’s one of a few narrow bridges.
But there is another kind of “salient” – and it has just appeared for Gen. McClellan:
This is the “punctum saliens” – which should appear conceptually, as an insight into the merging or coalescing of
historical forces or events -- in war, these are specifically military developments -- into a moment thereby made ripe
for human initiative to take action: and it helps some if “civilization itself hangs in the balance!” The German poet
Friedrich Schiller used the term to define the critical dramatic moment, in which a leader or hero can act intelligently
or heroically. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, leader of the German Bueso political party, defined it as follows:
I would like to explain to you what I mean by punctum saliens. Schiller used this notion in his great
historical dramas, where the drama develops in the beginning, in a historical setting, in which the fate of
nations and peoples will be decided by the main figures, the heroes. Then the story develops, and for a
variety of reasons, some depending on the positions of the heroes, some depending on events outside their
control, things go wrong. And in the drama, a terrible crisis develops. Then comes a point where
everything seems to be lost; and then the entire story concentrates in one point, and the hero gets another
chance to overcome this crisis. And now it is up to him to save the nations and the people. He can do so
if he's strong, and if he has a good character; or he fails, because he has some crucial weakness or
insufficient knowledge. This moment, where the decision is thrown back into the lap of the hero, is what
Schiller calls the punctum saliens.4
Gen. McClellan’s military and dramatic “punctum saliens” has just arrived – and he is about to miss it …. Not only
will he miss it – he will spurn it, and instead of moving to attack the Yorktown defenses at once, he will settle into a
month long siege that will “watermark” his Peninsular Campaign as a foot-dragging failure, from which his reputation
will never recover…
But let’s recap and see how McClellan’s punctum saliens will come – and slip away from him :
4
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, “Mankind is facing the Punctum Saliens,” Executive Intelligence Review, Vol. 19, May
29, 1992. Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche is also founder of the Schiller Institute http://www.schillerinstitute.org/

16. FIRST, the 6th
Maine under Lt. Comstock, overcame the Confederate works defended by the Fourteen Alabama
on April 6, 1862 – just days after arriving before Yorktown. Gen. Hancock’s Official Report was completed the
next day, April 7, 1862, and filed with Capt. C.D.H. Currie, Assistant Adjutant-General, under Gen. W.F. “Baldy”
Smith. Hancock’s report was received by Curry, who recommended it to Gen. Smith, who in turn read it and
forwarded it to Gen McClellan, with the following indorsement:
HEADQUARTERS NEAR FOUR CORNERS
April 10, 1862
Respectfully forwarded. The attention of the brigadier-general commanding the Fourth Army Corps is
called to the handsome and thorough manner in which Brigadier-General Hancock, commanding the
reconnaissance, conducted it.
WM. F. SMITH,
Brigadier-General, Commanding Division.
SECOND, Gen. McClellan was to be advised by President Lincoln on the preceding day, in a tersely worded
telegram of April 9, 1862, that as Commander-in-Chief he was requiring McClellan to initiate a direct attack at
Yorktown – indicating this was imperative to a Union advance. Lincoln closed his telegram this way:
I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than
now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can.
But you must act. “
Gen. McClellan had in hand, within a 24 hour period, both Lincoln’s April 9 telegram ordering action, and
Hancock’s April 7 report -- as endorsed April 10 by Gen. Smith -- on the successful overcoming of the Yorktown
defenses by the 6th
Maine. McClellan knew that the Yorktown works could be readily taken –- as early as April 10,
1862 -- and he acknowledged the 6th
Maine accomplishment, as Pvt. Drew reports: “For the excellent behavior of
the 6th
Maine on the occasion, it received the thanks of the Commander in Chief. The Gen’l in person gave us a
talk which made me feel as if I had grown an inch taller.”
THIRD, as Pvt. Drew reports, the 6th
Maine took four prisoners from
the Fourteenth Alabama pickets they had driven back behind the
Confederate works opposite Wynn’s Mill. According to Edwin C.
Fishel, The Secret War for 151 the Union, p. 151:
“In the first week of April[,] Hancock’s brigade took a few
prisoners; one of them an Alabama private, told Pinkerton’s
interrogator that Johnston had 500 guns in position and that his
force in a few days would number 100,000. McClellan as usual
seized on this low level, unsupported, single-source report and
informed Stanton [not Lincoln], “It seems clear that I shall have
the whole force of the enemy on my hands, probably not less than
one hundred thousand …”
As Fishel confirms, McClellan ignored the true intel: that the prisoner
had been taken readily, behind enemy lines, in the context of an assault
that proved Yorktown defenses were highly vulnerable. Furthermore,
the prisoner disclosed that Johnston’s reinforcements were coming, but
had not yet arrived: so the optimum moment for the Union attack
ordered by Lincoln –- McClellan’s punctum saliens -- was NOW …
Gen. McClellan turned his back

17. Lest anyone wonder what Gen. McClellan might have
accomplished for a whole month, with an army of
100,000 troops encamped along the Warwick river,
waiting and wondering when Lincoln would send him
suffficient reinforcements to justify an assault on
Yorktown – defended by only 8,000 Confederates – one
needs look no further than the McClellan’s Official Plan
of the Siege of Yorktown (1862). It’s a little elaborate for
a battlefield plan, but it’s the first scientific topographic
map of the Lower Peninsula. Lt. Comstock’s recon with
the 6th
Maine contributed to this expert cartography,
executed under the eye of Lt. Henry Larcom Abbott.
View it at http://www.loc.gov/item/99446373/

18. Lt. Comstock’s “Sketch of
Rebel Works near Lee’s Mill,”
is dated May 8, 1862: a month
after his reconnaissance with
Pvt. Drew and the 6th
Maine
Infantry, and after the Rebs had
abandoned their defensive lines
along the Warwick. But he
filed a more immediate report
of his reconnaissance with the 6th
Maine, before the maps and
sketches were completed: this
report is dated April 12, 1862.
Comstock’s sketch and reports
are included in Gen. Barnard’s
Report of the Engineer and
Artillery Operations of the
Army of the Potomac (1862).
https://archive.org/details/acp59
99.0001.001.umich.edu His
April 12th
1862, Report on
…Confederate Lines on the
Warwick River, starts at p. 194.
The Rebel Works profiled by
Comstock were established in
the vicinity of Lee’s Mill along
the Warwick: this was the very
site of the Vermont Brigade’s
assault, just touched on above, p
18. Their spontaneous assault –
unsanctioned by McClellan --
was the first real engagement
between Union Army and
Confederate Army troops on
the peninsula.
FOURTH, Gen. J.G. Barnard
makes it clear that he felt and
advised McClellan that the
works should have been carried.
He records, at p. 62, “The lines
of Yorktown should have been
assaulted. There is reason to
believe that they were not held
by strong force when our army
appeared before them, and we
know that they were far from
complete.”

19. “We moved camp into a nice peace of timber, but in cannon range of the foe, and settled down to …”
“A town of revolutionary fame, and was under [ Rebel control? Word missing -- Ed ] continuously, others was
bridging the swamp and corderoy roads, making gabions digging and rifle pits ___ (We had dropped the drill).”
EDITOR’S NOTE
McClellan’s Siege is now settling into its hot phase … a package of half-assed siege tactics is deployed, against a foe
who is not encircled, and at all times maintains supply lines back to Richmond! ! It is a textbook farce…
Indeed: a “siege” does not usually indicate a tactic of direct assault of enemy fortifications. Instead, it refers to a
distinct plan of long-range bombardment – present in the Yorktown siege -- coupled with “passive” military
stratagems for cutting off supplies to a fortified concentration of enemy fighting forces, in order to “starve ‘em out”
and avoid risking the high casualties that would likely occur in a direct assault. However, in the case of Yorktown,
this was a predetermined impossibility: Lincoln had disliked the one premier plan that McClellan had proposed –
the Urbanna Plan -- that would have truly laid a “Siege of Yorktown,” by cutting off Confederate supplies from way
back at West Point, far up the York River. To save his brainchild, McClellan had proposed a “vetting” of “Urbanna”
by Union generals, who approved execution of the pan. But very shortly after the vetting was complete, and the
plan approved, the Rebs abandoned their forward positions !!! Tarnation! As noted above, when the Confederates
withdrew from Manassas, out of reach of the “Urbanna, ” Gen. McClellan blamed the White House and Lincoln’s
vetting process, for enabling the leak that caused Gen. Johnston to move.
Now, below Yorktown and working his way back up toward Richmond, without cutting off Magruder’s supply lines,
there was no way in which “siege tactics” could have had any effect. So McClellan is just marking time. His intent
is hostile – but not to the Confederacy. Entrenchments are dug, “parallels’” and diagonals added, batteries
established and redoubts constructed. Further special engineering reconnaissances are made, until ideal
topographical precision is achieved (the peach trees in the orchards appear to have been counted: there was time
enough ) -- and memorialized on the excellent cartography of the “siege” …. And still nothing happens!! C.S.A.
Gen. Magruder, behind the Yorktown defenses, is astonished, and thinks he has bluffed McClellan: “The spectacle
was now exhibited of one party nervously hesitating to strike, while the other party was as nervously anxious to flee
from the expected blow.”5
This is a Mexican standoff unlike anything ever seen in Mexico !!
In fact, Gen. Magruder has nothing to worry about: McClellan’s has another enemy he intends to immobilize or
destroy by his inaction: the President, Abraham Lincoln, whom he will eventually oppose in the next presidential
elections of 1864, running as the Democratic nominee… If Gen Johnston had not arrived, with orders from
Richmond, that the Norfolk naval yard was destroyed, and Gen. Magruder’s forces could at last be withdrawn to
Williamsburg, both armies might still be “waging siege” on the Yorktown defenses, even to this day ….
5
Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War, Vol. II, 376

20. “One night [ sic ] We – Dan and I, got orders to go beyond our pickets and see if there was any bridges, we
cruised the creek more than a mile at the water edge – No bridges. We heard some rebels singing Coming
Through the Rye – we found a spring of water spring of water but it was in rifle range of the foe.
“We used to go to it after dark. It never was visited but once [during the day, and ] then [only] by Johnny
Whailing -- he had been on fatigue duty and was very warm – our picket pits were down close to it [the spring] …
so he concluded to have a good drink, started back: the Rebs opened on him ; our pickets opened on them.
Johnny’s canteen had a hole in it four bullets put through his cloathes – no blood was drawn, he told the Conol.,
“By Jebbes but I came near being killed so that I died.”
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The creek which the pickets are scouting -- looking for bridges at the water’s edge – must still be the headwaters of
the Warwick River/Warwick Creek, further upriver from the 6th
Maine’s first attack, ref’d above. However, though
finely detailed, Sneden’s Map of the Lines at Yorktown Virginia does not show the spring located by Drew and Dan
[Brown? or Bagley?]. Sneden does also show a sizable peach orchard south of the Yorktown fortifications on the
bluff overlooking the York River, indicating a likely source of sweet water; and immediately beyond the orchard,
the Confederate rifle pits !! So young Johnny Whailing, in his thirst for a cool drink on a hot day may have been
directly under Yorktown battlements when he exposed himself to Rebel gunfire from these pits – EXCEPT that
the Rebs were stationed in the peach orchard too !! See inset detail. So where was the spring?

21. Where did the Rebel pickets ruin Johnny Whailing’s G.I. canteen and put four holes in his cloathes?
To ZOOM IN on the Union works and the no-man’s land between the lines, in reach of the Rebel pickets and
gunning from the rifle pits, refer to Sneden’s detailed rendering of this battlefield, in his Official Map of the Union
Works in Front of Yorktown, Va., here: http://www.loc.gov/resource/gvhs01.vhs00246/ Sneden’s high-def
rendering reveals that most of the land was overflowed and swampy due to damning of the Warwick River by the
Confederates: few areas were high enough to host a fresh-water spring like the one the Union pickets were using !!

22. “The weather, the water, hard work and climate was telling on the men every evening roal call found some
missen gone to the hospital, or been wounded -- the rebel sharpshooters was taking heavy toll.
“One morning, the Yankees put on a new line of snipers, the Berdan Sharpshooters. They got under cover
before daylight, and when the Rebs started the fun they soon found out that there were some good [ P. 40 ]
marksmen on our side, they were armed with sporting rifles, telescope sights: the government furnished the
powder & lead – they done the rest, and hunted the Rebs on their own plan. They all were crack shots and the
Rebs snipers were soon sniped off. Our picket pits were advanced close down to the creek protected by gabions
and [? ] became [?] [ our ] skirmish line.” [See preceding page, where Sneden marks “Advance pickets” – Ed.]
Berdan’s line of sharpshooters is indicated near the bottom of this detail….. This was the first movement of
Berdan’s famous sharpshooter regiment in active service. A telescopic hunting rifle of the kind used by the Berdan
unit is below…

23. “On the evening of the 3rd
as soon as it was dark, the rebels opened a fearfull Bombardment on us. Volley after
volley of rifle fire along the whole line but no Artillery … it needed no long rool of drum to tell us to fall in, we
were all in line by the time the second volley was fired. We thought the rebs were a-going to attack; away back in
the rear of their works there was some loud reports sounding like Blasting rocks.
“We had big guns – little guns, all kinds of guns mounted and
orders was given to open the bombardment along the whole line on
the morning of May the 4th
at daylight.6
“One of the men climen a tall tree that we had used sometimes as a
lookout.
“Gen’l Hancock was there when he came down and reported some
large fires away up country was burning.
“The Gen’l said the foe are retreating and for us to lay down and
get all the rest we could but the racket was keept up until midnight.
Before daylight the pickets passed in the word that the works in
their front was evacuated, and we started at once on the chase.”
R.K. Sneden, detail of “View of Yorktown from Battery C, 1st
Parallel, April 28th
a rare profile, featured in his
Map of the Lines at Yorktown, Virginia, April, 1862 (Library of Congress)
6
The sequence of this sentence and the paragraph preceding it have been reversed by the Editor, to organize the
chronological continuity.

24. The cartography got done, because throughout the month of April and into May, Gen. McClellan “hesitated” before
Yorktown. Meanwhile, as Drew noted, Union troops were left to idle in the swamps, subject not just to inactivity
and demoralization, but to decimation by rebel snipers, swamp fever, malaria and other diseases:
“The twenty or thirty days during which the army lay before Yorktown, were stormy ones. Heavy thunder-
showers followed each other in quick succession. The wearied and heated men who worked in the trenches
or who were on duty under arms, were compelled to rest on the damp ground at night, by which they were
chilled. Fevers followed. “In a short time, says Dr. Marks, "the sick in our hospitals were numbered by
thousands, and many died so suddenly that the disease had all the aspect of a plague. [Citation omitted.]
General J.G. Barnard, McClellan's engineer in chief, in his report to his commander at the close of the
campaign says, after speaking of the toils of the troops for a month in the trenches, or lying in the swamps
of Warwick, “We lost a few men by the siege, but disease took a fearful hold on the army; and toil and
hardships unredeemed by the excitement of combat, impaired their morale. We did not carry with us
from Yorktown so good an army as we took there. Of the bitter fruits of that month gained by the enemy,
we have tasted to our heart's content."
--Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War, vol II, p 376
“At noon we hadent got up to them, so we stoped to eat some, and the afternoon’s march we [were] still behind.
At dark we camped had hardtack washed down with poor water. The next morning it was raining.”
“Road between Yorktown and Williamsburg,” from Lossing’s Pictorial History of the Civil War, Vol. II, p. 381

25. “A battle opened on the right.
“Gen’l Hooker’s men had run against
a big Fort and was hard at it.
“It was Fort Magruder in front of the
City of Williamsburg.
“Gen’l Kearney rushed his division
up to help Hooker.
“We got in line away out on the right,
found nothing to fight.
“Hancock wanted scouts [!!! – Ed.]”
“Burnham called for scouts from Co.
K – [!!!- Ed.] [Yelling loudly: – Ed.]
“10 of [ us] started but found the land covered with water…. ”7
7
SPECIAL THANKS TO HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE of the SCHILLER INSTITUTE --
for KEEPING the PUNCTUM SALIENS OPEN for MANKIND the LAST 40 + YEARS !!