[Footnote 8: Maine Adjutant-General's Report, 1862, p. 142. Captain B. M. Smith.] At three o'clock in the morning the soldiers were astir, roused by the drum-beat and the bugle. The fading fires were rekindled. Their coffee was soon bubbling on the coals. Before daylight they had their knapsacks packed, their tents taken down, and all things ready for the march. By sunrise they were on the road, General Heintzelman's corps leading the column. The roads were deep with mud, and the marching was heavy, but so enthusiastic were the soldiers that by ten o'clock the head of the column encountered the enemy's pickets in front of Yorktown. Both armies were upon historic ground. It was at Yorktown that the British army under Lord Cornwallis laid down its arms in 1781. It was a flourishing village then. There were fine mansions, surrounded with shrubbery, shaded by old oaks and lindens. Virginia in those days had many wealthy families. The Peninsula was the first settled territory in America, and many of the planters had immense estates. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence resided at Yorktown,--Governor Nelson. His house is yet standing,--a large two-story brick building, which General Magruder occupied for his head-quarters. It bears the marks of shot which were fired by the Americans during the siege in 1781. Governor Nelson commanded the Virginia militia then. He was a noble patriot, and aimed the cannon himself at his own house to drive out the British who had possession of it. Cornwallis had a line of earthworks around Yorktown, and those which Magruder erected were on pretty much the same line, only Magruder's, besides encircling the town, also reached across the Peninsula. The English general had between seven and eight thousand men. General Washington and Count Rochambeau had about fifteen thousand. They were large armies for those days, but very small when compared with that commanded by General McClellan. It was a long march which the French and American troops made to reach Yorktown. They marched from New York, in July, through Philadelphia, Baltimore, Annapolis, Mount Vernon, and Williamsburg. They had no transports to take them down the Chesapeake, besides, there was an English fleet in the bay which might have captured the entire army had it moved by water. In the American army were officers whose names are inseparably connected with the history of our country,--General Knox, Baron Steuben, Lafayette, General Clinton, General Lincoln, Colonel Scammell, the brave New Hampshire officer who was shot by a Hessian soldier. In the French army were Count Rochambeau, Marquis St. Simon, and Baron Viomeil. In the bay floated the English ships of war, and outside, near Cape Henry, was the Count de Grasse, with his formidable fleet.