of battle; and they rushed forward through the
liquid mud, each regiment striving which should first reach the field.
But as we reached the scene of conflict, the rebels had fled; leaving
the victory with the men in blue.

The regiments engaged in this brilliant affair were, the Forty-third New
York, the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania, the Sixth Maine and Fifth Wisconsin,
of the First brigade, and the Thirty-third New York and Seventh Maine of
the Third brigade.

The rebels, outflanked by the gallant movement of Smith's division, were
glad to fall back from before Hooker and Kearney, and seek refuge behind
their works. Meanwhile the great body of the army had remained entirely
passive; not even having been brought into line of battle. Why some of
these troops were not called to the assistance of Hooker, or to render
the victory of Hancock more complete, we do not know.

Thus closed the battle of Williamsburgh; a battle fought by two
divisions and a part of a third, while the mass of the army remained as
idle spectators of the terrible scene. If less than twenty thousand men
could drive the rebels from their strong works, what could not that
grand army have done had it been brought into action!

General McClellan arrived on the field at five o'clock in the afternoon,
and was received with shouts of applause; but the fighting was then
over. The general had remained at Yorktown since the morning of the 4th,
to superintend personally the shipment of Franklin's division of twelve
thousand men; one-half of whom, in order that they might be in readiness
at any moment to proceed up the river and head off the enemy, had never
been allowed to disembark from the transports which brought them to
Yorktown. General McClellan's conduct in spending nearly two days in
overseeing personally the embarkation of half or even the whole of a
division of men, while one of the most important battles of the war was
in progress, leaving it to others to take care of the "little affair at
the front," has, by some, been severely censured; while others have as
earnestly claimed that the Commander-in-Chief had his own views of the
necessity of getting those troops off at once, and the necessity of
seeing that supplies of rations, ammunition and war material, were
forwarded, was imperative; and that we are to remember that the advance
was intrusted to General Sumner; a man in whose ability both he and the
army confided. The general telegraphed that night