Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-08-03
[ From Harper's Magazine for August, 1884,
THE SURRENDER OF CORN
WALLIS.
CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK.

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK.
The first week of October was devo-
ted by the allies to preparations, such
as the making of gabions, fascines and
stakes, bringing up of guns and careful
| surveying for approaches. The enemy
meanwhile opened fire on all pickets
and observing parties that showed
themselves, four men of the Pennsylva-
MIA line being killed by one shot on the
Sd inst. On the evening of the 9Th,
all things being in readiness, three
thousand men, with shovels and ga
bions, broke ground for the first paral-
lei within seven hundred yards of the
enemy, whose firing during the night
did but little execution. BY dawn of
the 7th respectable intrenchment had
been completed, running from the York
below around to the works at Pigeon
Quarter, and few hours later the light
infantry corps entered the line, with
drums beating and colors flying, and
planted their standards on top of the
parallel. The French took possession
to the left'ssof them. Industrious dig
ging on the part of the allied forces
continued night and day, and by the
afternoon of the 9th a sufficient num-
ber of batteries had been erected to
open the bombardment of Yorktown.
The first to fire, at three o'clock, was
French battery on the extreme left,
near the bank of the river above the
town. At FIVE O'Clock an American
battery ON the extreme right, on the
river bank, followed with discharges
from eighteen and twenty-tour pound
ers, and the serious work of the siege
had begun.
The journal of more than one Amer
lean officer mentions the fact that the
first shot from the American battery
was fired by Washington himself Col
onel Cortlandt remembered that he dis
tinctly heard it crash into some houses
in Yorktown. If Captain Samuel Gra-
ham, of the Seventy-sixth Regiment,
whose station was directly in the line
of fire, was not mistaken as to the par
ticular discharge he refers to in his
memoirs, this first shot was singularly
fatal. A party of officers from the Sew
enty-sixth were then at dinner in
neighboring building. The British
Commissary- General Perkins was with
them. One of the officers was an old
Scotch lieutenant, who, when the allies
first invested the place, was heard 70
soliloquize as he buckled on his sword:
"Come on, Master Washington. Pm
unco glad to see you. I've been offer
ed money for my commission, but |
could ma think of gangin' home
without sight of you Come
on" Poor fellow, Washington fell up
on him in way that was quite unex-
pected, for the first ball struck and
wounded him terribly. 1t also wound
ed the quarter-master and adjutant of
the Seventy-sixth, aud killed the CON-
missary-general. Another marked cas-
ualty of the siege was the death of
Major Cochrane, who arrived at York
town on the 10th, with dispatches from
Clinton to CORVALLIS. Two days af-
ter, in company with the British gen.
eral, he went to the lines, and fred one
of the guns himself; but as he looked
over the parapet to see its effect en- ri
cochet, ball from the American works
carried away his head, narrowly mis-
sing CORVALLIS, who was standing by
his side. By the 18th, so effective had
the fire of the allies become that that
of the enemy was entirely silenced. In
some of their batteries the fascines,
platforms, guns and gun-carriages were
all pounded together in broken mass,
while shot and shell enfiladed the town
from one end to the other. Cornwall
lis own headquarters became untena-
BILE almost from the beginning of the
bombardment. He Lad occupied the
grand brick mansion of Mr. Nelson, the
former Secretary of Virginia, which
stood at the edge of the town, near the
centre of the line of defenses, and where
the Secretary was still living As the
house was conspicuous object, and in
the range Of fire from many points in
the American line, it suffered more
than any other, and no one could re-
main in it with safety. CORVALLIS
withdrew from it about the 10th, as
did Mr. Nelson, who received permis-
sion to pass into the American lines.
Fifteen years after the war it still stood
unrepalred, pierced in every direction
with cannon-shot and bomb-shells"
Nor could the British shipping in the
river remain at the usual anchorage off
= ha af
been scuttled and sunk by order of the
British commander, while the Charon,
q forty-four-gun ship, was set on fire
on the night of the 10th by hot shot
from the French battery on the extreme
left, and destroyed. An officer who
witnessed the sight writes "The Cha
ron was on fire from the waters edge
to her truck at the same time. / never
saw anything so magnificent" Two
transports close to her were also burn
ed.
Vigorously as the siege was prose-
cuted, the turning point and the end
came even sooner than expected; but
then from the beginning it had been a
campaign of surprises. The incident
which largely determined matters oc-
Cured in connection with the construc-
tion by the allies of second parallel
from three to five hundred yards in
advance Of the first, thus bringing both
wings within storming distance of the
British lines. This parallel was open
ed on the night of the. llth by detach-
ments from the two armies, Steuben's
division furnishing the American de-
tail. The parties moved out at dusk,
every second man carrying a fasciDe
and shovel, and every man ga shovel,
spade, or grubbing hoe" and by morn
ing they had thrown up an intrench-
ment seven hundred and fifty yards
long, three and half feet deep. and
seven feet wide. 1t was an exciting
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