The Night of May 4-5, 1862 (March on Williamsburg)

General McClellan's headquarters were in a white house at the head of the main street and nearly opposite the Nelson house. A large national flag floated from a tall pole put up this forenoon. As the troops marched through I made a sketch. All moved off in fine spirits without music, and the columns of men and bayonets glistening in the setting sun moved down into the ravines by Windmill Creek, and into the unknown depths of the dark woods for hours. Generals Heintzelman, Kearny, and Birney rode at the head of the column with Hooker, whose troops had the lead. Light batteries of artillery moved with the column. All went forward at the "route step"and all moved as if in review. On the river our gunboats were shelling the woods over towards Gloucester Point (now deserted by the enemy). Others, with numerous small boats, were removing the sunken spiles across the channel, while the sun set in splendor over the scene, and everyone was joyous to be once more foot loose in pursuit of the enemy.      Soon our headquarter train of six wagons came along with the wagon guard of twenty men under Lieutenant Gray of [the] 3rd Maine. I had packed my map box and instruments before leaving headquarters in the morning and went with the wagon train so as to get any maps out which might be wanted by the general in advance. The wagons were packed with tents, mess chests, officers' baggage, and several demijohns of "red eye" with patent lock stoppers on each, which were carefully nursed from mishap by the teamsters. Three days rations were ordered to be cooked before breaking camp. Still many had not time to do so. Such was the hurry in getting off. Forty rounds of cartridges were carried by each soldier, however, while many were overloaded. Others had thrown away their overcoats or had left them behind so as to lighten the march. The artillery moved with the wagons on the road while the troops had to march in columns of fours on each side of them on account of the narrowness of them.      We passed down a steep hill to Windmill Creek, which was bridged in several places, then struck into the Yorktown and Williamsburg turnpike or main road about 6:30 p.m. The dense woods overhung the road, while pools of black water could be seen under them. The roads were sandy but full of sloughs of mud and water, with here and there broken corduroy stuff sticking out of the red mud, and these mud holes were numerous. The wagon trains crawled along slowly, until an opening in the woods allowed one train to pass the other. After going two miles the wagons stuck in the mud every few minutes, while the mules were belabored unmercifully by the teamsters, while the air was blue with their swearing. Every wagon master tried to get his train ahead of the one before him and raced the teams when an opening appeared in the woods. Then wheels would be interlocked and the mules roll completely out of harness, so the same old scenes were repeated as when we traveled from Hampton to Yorktown a month ago. . . . The yells, cracking of whips, curses, and braying of the mules resounded through the woods for a great distance in many places. The road went down in a gully with high banks of gravel on either side with water a foot deep at the bottom. The men had then to take hold of the wheel spokes and turn them by main strength to get them through.      Soon we came to a narrow part of the road going downhill with a wet sandy bottom. Here our headquarter train stuck for half an hour and the mules had to be taken out of the rear wagons and hitched on in front. This gave us time to build a fire and have supper. When lighting our pipes, we kept along the edges of the woods and clearings. Very few houses were seen, and they were all deserted with windows broken and overrun with tall weeds and brambles in front and rear. About 9 p.m., we had a long halt of all the wagons and going ahead half a mile or more found the delay caused by a large uncultivated field which stretched on both sides of the road, along which and in the field were small heaps of fresh earth at intervals. These heaps were also in the middle of the road. The heaps of earth were thought to be planted torpedoes. So the artillery men were turning these over but found none. These were only shams placed by the enemy to cause delay. We did lose more than an hour's time trying to find out what the heaps meant. . . .      As we neared the Halfway House we came upon numerous Rebel army wagons which had been stalled in the mud. They were lying on their sides with all the wheels cut to pieces with axes. Nothing was found in the wagons but a few old salt bags. There were lots of dead mules strung out on the road for a mile or more lying on their backs, half smothered in mud, with their feet sticking up out of it. These had to be all removed by ropes before the line mules in our train would pass them, another delay of an hour.            An order came at 2 a.m. to halt the whole wagon trains, which was gladly complied with, while the battery horses now pulled the guns through to the front when they were parked near the Halfway House, an old wayside tavern near. The teamsters slept in their wagons while the patient army mule stood in harness during the rest of the night chewing on the tailboards of the wagon in front of him. Our headquarter wagon guard built a fire and we all had a good meal at 2:30 in the morning of May 5. I and others slept in our wagons. All of our sugar, salt, and hard bread had got wet with the rain which poured down steadily until long after daylight. The small streams in the bottom of the ravines in the woods where we had halted were turned into small mill races roaring all the while. The mules brayed unceasingly, which scared an owl or two away up in the pine trees, and everyone soon sought sleep as best he might.

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Because the second volume of Sneden's diary/memoir is missing, unfortunately we lose the details of his life for nearly two months. From evidence drawn from notes in his scrapbook and a diary of General Heintzelman, it must have been a period of intense activity for Sneden, including first-hand observations of two battles. On May 5, Heintzelman's corps advanced on Williamsburg, where it fought a sharp battle just east of the old colonial capital. Sneden prepared a map for Heintzelman's official report of the battle. He also made detailed drawings of the battlefield and an army hospital set up at the College of William and Mary. With sketchbook in hand, he then drew villages and crossroads as the Union army advanced slowly up the Peninsula to the Chickahominy River, only a few miles northeast of Richmond. And almost without fail, he made drawings of the houses that Heintzelman selected for his headquarters.

By the end of May, McClellan split his army, putting two corps, including Heintzelman's, on the south side of the Chickahominy River in preparation for an attack on the Confederate capital. Rather than wait for McClellan to act, however, the Rebels launched a heavy, but unwieldy assault on the two exposed Union corps at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Heintzelman took command of the battlefield on the first day and was in the heat of action, having a horse shot from under him. We do not know of Sneden's whereabouts during the battle, but his scrapbook contains images of Fair Oaks sites, including buildings used as hospitals.

The two-day battle ended in a draw, but the butcher's bill for both sides was high, more than 11,000 men. One casualty, however, stood out. At the end of the first day of battle, Confederate commander Joseph E. Johnston was severely wounded. The following day, President Jefferson Davis announced his replacement-Robert E. Lee. Within a matter of weeks, this bold new leader would change the course of the war. For Robert Sneden, the conflict would become a far deadlier business.

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