Faithful Unto DeathThe Assault at Lee's Mills

The Federal troops marched down the peninsula but ended up lost much of the time due to their generals' ignorance of the terrain. General McClellan arrived on April 3rd and the army advanced towards Yorktown. They split their ranks with one column led by McClellan and the other by Smith.

The Confederates offered little resistance until the Federals reached Warwick Creek. The southerners hid behind redoubts and rife pits that were built upon bluffs overlooking Warwick Creek. The stream had been damned up for defense by the Confederates. The damns now provided a series of ponds that would be difficult to cross. The few places that could be crossed were defended by Confederate artillery.

McClellan believed the Confederates were massed behind these fortifications and by penetrating them, the Federals would win the war.

McClellan consulted with his generals and decided on one of the redoubts on Warwick Creek between Lee's Mills and Wynn's Mills. Opposite the fortification was the Garrow Farm, a burned out ruin that provided a clearing and possible entry to the redoubt.

The orders given to General Smith from McClellan were to stop the enemy's work on the fortress. To accomplish this, McClellan ordered Smith to send in a small force of his men in to access the strength of the Confederates and the lay of the land.

The next day after receiving the orders, Smith began firing his artillery at the fortress to provide cover and then sent in his first assault of the Army of the Potomac in Confederate territory. This assault was made by four companies of the Third Vermont.

The Vermonters ran out of the woods and unclasped their cartridge belts and held them above their heads as they charged into the waist-high creek while the Confederates fired repeatedly at them from their rifle pits in front of the fortress.

As the Vermonters approached and the artillery pounded the rifle pits, the Confederates abandoned the trenches and ran for cover behind the redoubts. The Third Vermont troops cheered and waved handkerchiefs as a sign of victory at taking the rifle pits and to also signal for reinforcements.

But the reinforcements did not come. For another thirty minutes the Third Vermont maintained their position in the captured rifle pits. That was enough time for the Confederates to regroup and begin a counter-attack on the rifle pits below them.

The Vermonters discovered that in crossing the creek, their ammunition had been ruined by water. Outnumbered by both guns and heavy artillery at close range from the redoubts, they took heavy losses in the retreat back across the creek. There were close to 200 men in the attack. Only half of them survived. One of the casualties was William Scott.