The afternoon of the second day's march brought the advance of the army in front of the enemy's formidable works around Yorktown and along the Warwick river. For the space of nearly a mile, immediately in front of the town, the country was open, scarcely a tree or a shrub impeding the view of the fortifications, whose embrasures bristled with heavy ordnance. With drums beating and colors flying we marched boldly along the way and filing off into the open fields deliberately proceeded to pitch our tents and make our camp in the very jaws, as it were, of these frowning batteries. Whether it was a fear of bringing on a general engagement, or amazement at our audacity that kept the Confederates quiet behind their earth-works we did not then know, but subsequent events proved the former to be the cause. Not until the day following did they manifest a disposition to disturb our repose, and then only by a solitary shot that plunged into one of our company's streets, burying itself deep in the soft earth. This shot was sufficient, however, to admonish us of the fact that they had a perfect range of our camp, and could, of they chose, make it exceedingly uncomfortable for us. As a result we very deliberately withdrew, without the loss of a tent or knapsack, back to the main line in the woods, though not wholly beyond the range of their guns. Once in our established camp there began a month of as arduous duty as untried soldiers were ever called to perform. Digging trenches, constructing earthworks, and picket duty, kept us constantly engaged, and to add to our discomfort the weather was extremely unpleasant; frequent rains wetting us to the skin and rendering the earth about the consistency of a mortar bed. Of this time Surgeon Lyman writes: "Here for three weeks the men walked in mud, slept in mud and drank water from holes scooped out of the mud. The combined remonstrances of the medical officers of the brigade, 'that a month's continuance in that place would deprive the government of the services of one-half of its members,' were met by the silencing reply, 'It is a military necessity.' The result showed that our fears were well founded. The malaria of the marshes and swamps of Yorktown, with the excessive labor performed in the trenches and on picket duty, debilitated our men for months, sending dozens of them to their graves, and rendering hundreds unfit for service, and many for life." Here we had our first experience with the wild garlic, which grew spontaneously in the uncultivated fields and after a day or two's pasturing rendered the flesh of the beeves unpalatable, the taste of the garlic remaining long in the mouth after the act of mastication. Here, too, the regiment had its baptismal of blood, in the known to us, though never historically christened, "Battle of the Peach Orchard."