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| Silent after two days work. Union Battery No. 1, Two Miles Below Yorktown.--This section of the Parrott guns was in the peach orchard of the Farenholdt House. Never had so heavy a battery been set up before in siege work. McClellan hoped by it to silence the “impregnable” water batteries of the Confederates by dropping shot and shell upon Yorktown wharf and within the defenses on the bluff. After two days of action it was rendered useless by the evacuation of Yorktown, and had to be transported up the river after the change of the base. The Farenholdt mansion, a handsome old Colonial structure, was just in the rear of this battery, and from its roof the work of the shells could be clearly observed. The good shots were cheered and the men stationed here were in holiday mood — no Confederate fire could reach them. |
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| The scene of Yorktown's only surrender Moore's House, about a Mile Southeast of the Town.--Near here, in 1781, Cornwallis laid down his arms to Washington and in this house the terms of the surrender which established the independence of America were drawn up. The damage to the house is the effect of the Revolutionary guns and not those of McClellan. The guns of Battery No. 1 fired their heavy shells over this house. Near here also many of the Continentals were buried, and across their graves and the old Camp of Cornwallis's beleagured troops the messengers of destruction hurtled through the air. The Federal fleet was anchored near where the Comte de Grasse's ships lay at the time of the surrender. |
