Thousands of soldiers were in the open space in front of the sawmill to see for themselves and all was excitement and hurry when the bugles at 10 o'clock sounded "the assembly." General [Charles D. Jameson] of Kearny's division . . . were the first troops to enter the enemy's works about daylight. The 35th, 40th and 70th New York regiments . . . went across the plateau and entered the main works, . . . planting their colors on the ramparts and trying to put out the fires in the town. . . . A black smoke from Gloucester Point batteries showed that the enemy had fired the camps there and the garrison had crossed over in boats to Yorktown before daybreak.

     We made a hurried breakfast at headquarters while all the cooks were hard at work cooking rations for the expected forward march. Our telegraph operator Lathrop started for the Rebel headquarters in Yorktown to secure any dispatches or memo left behind by the Rebel operator there at 7 a.m. He wanted me to go with him very much, but I would not as I then had not gotten my breakfast, although I had all my instruments and map box fully packed, so he went without me.

     The whole army were much chagrined that the enemy had so cleverly "skipped out" after giving us all the hard work to construct fourteen batteries, corduroy numerous miles of road, etc. [It was] a whole month's work for nothing, and without the opportunity to see the grand "feu de enfer" which McClellan had set his heart upon. All the fine guns stood up in the different batteries with ammunition piled in them for a forty-eight hour's continuous bombardment as monuments of McClellan's imbecility and "fortification on the brain." All were useless now, and must be sent back to Fort Monroe. The enemy. . . had given us the slip and would not wait, of course, to be killed when the batteries would open on the morning of the [6th] as intended. The "Little Napoleon stock" fell very low among officers who knew anything. . . .

     At 11 a.m., the [divisions] of Kearny and Birney moved across the plateau to Yorktown from which clouds of smoke were still rising. The bands were now once more in full blast, while the colors flying and bright uniforms with the polished arms glistening in the morning sun looked grand and imposing. . . . All our tents at headquarters at the sawmill had been struck and packed in the wagons. [Once] the general and staff mounted, we all moved over the plain to Yorktown. The fleet of gunboats had got through the obstructions and had sailed up river shelling the woods as they went.

     Word reached us before leaving that Lathrop, our telegraph operator, had been blown up by a torpedo [land mine] in one of the houses in Yorktown at 8 o'clock. He had been carried to the old grist mill with both legs blown off and had died in great agony. He had found the office of the Rebel operator, and while removing a ground wire had stepped on a hidden torpedo shell placed there by the enemy. [It] exploded, tearing out the whole side of the building. I was lucky in not going with him, as I fully intended doing so, but was too old a campaigner to lose my breakfast by not waiting for it.

     The enemy had planted live shells with fuse attached in the main road leading into the works, and in houses, and buried them in the parapets and other places. Several large mines had been constructed in the ditches and ravines outside the parapets, in case our troops should assault. Some of the ditches forty feet wide were dry, others had five to eight feet of water in them. Many of these torpedo shells with friction primers attached had been tramped on and had exploded wounding and killing several of our men who were first into the works and town. . . . Some of the cavalry were also killed with their horses. One man picked up a jackknife [with] a string attached to it, which exploded a torpedo and blew him to fragments. Barrels half full of corn meal or potatoes in the houses had strings and levers attached which exploded a torpedo if moved.

     Our sapper engineers after two hours work had safely unearthed many of these cowardly missiles. Many were in groups, others planted at haphazard. Pieces of telegraph wire with a small piece of white cotton rag attached showed where some were taken out and where others were yet planted.

     Yorktown contained only about forty houses. Many were of brick, unpainted and weather worn. The former custom house was [very] much dilapidated. A red flag was hung out of one of the windows showing that it had been used for a hospital. The old house, formerly headquarters of General Lafayette during or after the siege of 1781, was in a tumble down condition. . . . Our headquarters train came to a halt at a barrack looking place and I went over the town and ramparts making notes and sketching as rapidly as possible. The troops were moving across the plateau all day into the town, and they looked fine from the ramparts. General McClellan . . . made his headquarters in one of the best houses at the head of the main street while a tall flag staff put up by the Rebels floated a large national flag.

     The Nelson house was the finest and best in the town. It had been built by Governor Nelson in colonial times. The bricks and white marble trimmings had been imported from England, and was the headquarters of Lord Cornwallis during the siege of 1781. . . . A red flag was still attached to the chimney on the roof, which we had all along plainly seen from the sawmill or on any part of our front line. This house had been the general headquarters of the Rebel Generals Johnston and Magruder during the siege. It was not fired upon on account of the red hospital flag on the roof. When Number 1 battery opened fire on April 30, it could have been smashed with all in it. Jeff Davis himself held a council of war here only two days ago with Generals Robert E. Lee, Johnston, Magruder, Hill, and others relative to the evacuation. . . . If we had only known of it, our 200 pounder Parrott guns would have "hurried them up."

     Another headquarters of Rebel generals were at the grist mill below on the flats. Those of General Magruder, which were in a large brick house in the town, had been set on fire, and was now a smoking ruin. I went into a long frame building where a dinner or mess table was set for a dozen or more persons, tin plates, iron spoons, broken crockery, and a lot of wheat bread in loaves were strewed on the table and on the floor. The bread was not touched by our men for fear of poison. Neither was any of the water used from wells or cisterns for the same reason. Rough hemlock boards nailed to floor and supports served for seats in the absence of chairs, while on the floors of both stories were strewed tin cartridge boxes, rough dirty leather accouterments, dirty straw beds, torn and cast off clothing, meal bags, bloody, dirty rags and broken bottles. The stench was vile. The place had not been swept out in a month.

     Every house in the town had been used for some military purpose. In some were medical stores, others which had probably been used as hospitals, were littered with bloody rags, broken boxes and barrels, dirty straw beds, tin cups, and wooden canteens made like small flat kegs with a strap or horse hide string. The old wooden church had been used for quartermaster stores. Rough leather cartridge boxes, mixed in with broken barrels and boxes, were all around and a pile of rusty bacon corn meal flour were lying on the floors and at the doors.

     All the inhabitants had fled. A few old Negroes came out of their hiding places when we occupied the town in the morning. They gave all information that they were capable of when they were put at work at once to unearth the torpedoes, although they claimed to know nothing about them. Several wounded and dying Rebels were found on the second story of the Nelson house which had been used for hospital purposes for officers. They had been wounded by the bursting of a large gun on the ramparts two days ago while firing at the balloon and sawmill. . . . It blew off half way from the trunnion to [the] cascabel, upsetting the heavy timber carriage. It was overcharged at the time. This was fortunate for us at the sawmill, as the shot and shell were making it hot for us when the gun burst.

     Governor Nelson's tomb was near the mansion. It was a white marble shaft, not very high, but very elaborately carved. A brick wall surrounded the Nelson house enclosing what was once a fine garden and valuable shrubs. These were now all trampled down. The houses were deserted, all the fences gone, and not a live chicken or pig could be found in the place. . . . The interior was finished in oak and walnut with mahogany doors. It now was defaced with dirt and all manner of hospital filth, though some of the heaviest furniture remained. The marble monument erected by Congress to commemorate the surrender of Cornwallis stood on the plateau a little off the main road leading from Hampton to Yorktown. It had been broken all up and carried off for relics by either our fellows or the Rebels. Only the foundation remained, and if this had not been too heavy to carry, would have been taken also by the "relic hunting fiend."