Again General Longstreet was disappointed in what he had regarded as a sure and easy success. The gunboats did not apparently, to him, present a formidable resistance; nor yet the two army gunboats, Smith Briggs, and West End, which were commanded by two youthful officers—Captain Rowe, and Captain Lee—whose skill and bravery put them on a level with veterans in the service. Strong batteries of the enemy engaged the gunboats at early dawn of the 12th of April, after having spent the entire night in constructing battery after battery; and although the frail boats were completely riddled, and their men were shot down so fast that the decks were strewn with the killed and wounded, the staunch little vessels, with their brave crews, obstinately refused to leave the river. The Nansemond, which was so small a stream that a moderately sized steamer could not turn round in it, was defended by this small flotilla against a force thirty thousand strong, eager and determined to cross, and having opposed to them six navy gunboats, two army gunboats, a force, in all numbering but five thousand men, to hold a line eight miles in length. Brigadier-General Getty, who had been entrusted with the arduous task of defending the Nansemond river, was eminently suited to defend it successfully. The Nansemond had the further disadvantage of being surrounded with various swamps and creeks, so that it was absolutely impossible for troops to pass, as reinforcements, from one point to another, without great loss of time. To remedy this inconvenience, General Getty had undertaken the construction of a military road several miles in length, which should include many bridges and long spaces of corduroy; and by extraordinary exertions the troops had completed this road in the space of three days.