1862 May 8 Yorktown, Va.

[from the diary of Jonathan B. Hager of the 14th U. S. regulars, as copied by him at a later date]

I rode to day with Captains Brown & Keyes &
Dr Forwood[?] of my regiment to visit the intrench-
ments & batteries around Yorktown. it was one
of those exquisitely sweet May Morning for
which the Sunny South is so justly celebrated.
Nature had on her face her sweetest smiles &
it seemed more fit for parties of pleasure than
for war. A short ride brought us near the
rebel lines.  We were cautioned as to going off
the road on either side, as the rebels before retiring
have buried many torpedoes which would explode
upon the touch & several of our soldiers had been
wounded & killed by them.  Wherever they had been
discovered a little stick had been placed with
a rag at the upper end to indicate that a
torpedo was there.  It was an infamous and
cowardly proceeding---worse than highway murder--
for in the latter a man had some chance of life
We were not long in reaching the village
of Yorktown.  the entire town was enclosed
with a high embankment of earth, at the
base of which on the outside was a deep ditch
Big guns frowned upon the passerby every few
yards.  After skirting perhaps half the circum-
ference of the fortress we reached the principal
entrance & proceeded to take a view of things
inside. The first & most prominent object
that attracted our attention was ---dirt.
Such quantities of dirt around and about a
Military Camp.  where every thing is supposed
to be peculiarly clean & neat.  I never beheld--
It was enough of itself to cause evacuation.
This was the principal part of the legacy left as
a large number of heavy guns yet protruded
their ugly mouths from embrasures in the
parapet, but all were spiked.  Fixed ammunition
lay around in piles.  The number of guns left
by the rebels was over seventy, with a large
quantity of ammunition.  We rode over and along
a great part of their works. their water batteries
their breastworks running entirely across the Peninsula
 to James River, strengthened here & there by batteries,
all showed the immense strength of their works &
what would be the immense cost of blood to
take them.  Here we also saw  the fragments of
tir terrible two hundred pounded parrott
guns which had burst & with such fatal
consequences to the gunners--their powder mag-
azines which they had closed & which were left
unopened, suspicions being naturally excited
that any attempt to open them would be at-
tended by an explosion of the contents dealing
death & disaster to all around--It was
understood to be the intention of Gen McClellan
to cause them to be opened by some of the pirs-
oners he had taken as a just punishment ofr
their cowardly attempt to destroy his soldiers
with the treacherous torpedo.
It seemed to us that the whole country was
dug up  Batteries on the waters edge. Batteries
on the bluffs.  Batteries every where.  It must
have been the work of thousands of men for
months.  Gloucester Point on the opposite
side of the river was no less favored.  Though
we did not visit this.  Yet from Yorktown
we could see that vast works had been con-
structed there also--but there as at Yorktown
the stars & stripes floated gracefully and tri-
umphantly in the breeze--a tribut to the
strategy of the young commander.
During our ride & before reaching Yorktown
we visited the old home in which it is said
that Washington and Cornwallis signed the
articles of Capitulation in 1783.  It is of course
a miserable habitation now, but has been
until very recently occupied--Its style of
architecture, the moss upon the roof, the
decayed timbers, all denoted its antiquity
We took as mementoes pieces of the sill yet
sound, which had been splintered by a rebel shell
We returned to camp amply compensated
for our ride by the sights we had seen and
more than thriced pleased that our friends the
rebels had spared us the trouble of taking
their works by force.

MSS 9044