History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; prepared in compliance with acts of the legislature, by Samuel P. Bates.

1250 EIGHTY-THIRD REGIMENT. 1862
well posted. Around the town was a bastioned fort, mounted with overseventy gins of heavy calibre. From the fort there extended a line of works
across the Peninsula to Warwick River, a distance of about seven miles.
Deeming it impolitic to assault, General M'Clellan determined to lay siege to
the place. The operations against the principal work were assigned to the
division to which the Eighty-third belonged, and in these the regiment shared.
Armed with picks and spades, the men advanced nightly to the work. Commencing with rifle-pits, these were widened and deepened until they were
finally formed into covered ways, in which were constructed regular batteries,
with embrasures for heavy ordnance. Among the works built, were fourteen
batteries, mounting from six to sixteen guns. These were mounted with thirteen-inch mortars, thirty-two pounder Rodman guns, and one and two hundred-pound rifled Parrot. At length, on the third of May, when the works
were all finished and the guns in position, ready to make the grand assault,
the enemy, under cover of a heavy cannonade, retired from his fortifications,
and retreated up the Peninsula.
Moving,by transports up the York River, and marching thence to the neighborhood of Hanover Court House, the enemy was encountered, and the regiment advanced under a heavy artillery fire. Throwing aside blankets and
knapsacks, it was soon engaged, and driving the enemy. So hard pressed
was he, by the Eighty-third, that he was obliged to abandon one of his pieces,
which was subsequently taken in charge and dragged off the field by the Seventeenth New York, which claimed the credit of its capture. The enemy
again making a stand on the Ashland Road, the regiment pushed rapidly forward, and, after a hotly contested musketry engagement of half an hour, he
was again put to flight. The loss was eight men wounded.
Towards the close of May, M'Clellan's army lay in front of Richmond, the
major part on the right bank, stretching away towards White Oak Swamp;
Porter's Corps, consisting of about twenty-seven thousand men, on the left
bank, covering the base at White House. It was the design of Lee-who had
succeeded to the command of the rebel army, after the battle of Fair Oaks,
where Johnston, its former commander, had been wounded-while making a
show of strength in front of the Union line, south of the river, to fall with the
flower of his army, now reinforced by Jackson, upon the fragment north of the
river, crush it, and cut the line of supply. Accordingly, on the 27th of June,
with sixty thousand men, under Longstreet, the two Hills, and Jackson, he
attacked Porter's Corps, which had been drawn up in line of battle at Gaines'
Mill.
The Eighty-third occupied a position on the extreme left, fronting the west.
While awaiting the enemy's advance, by the wise forethought of Colonel
M'Lane, a breast-work of logs was hastily thrown up. Had a similar precaution been taken along the entire line, the position at Gaines' Mill, which was
a commanding one, might have been rendered impregnable, and the enemy
would have been swept back as afterwards at Malvern Hill. Later in the
war the virtue of breast-works was better understood. Company A, Captain
Sigler, had been thrown out early in the day as skirmishers, and later was relieved by company B, Captain Morris, who was soon after severely wounded,
and carried to the rear. Under cover of a heavy artillery fire, the enemy's infantry advanced, driving in our skirmishers, and when in full view, a well directed volley from front and rear line of the Eighty-third, and a rapid fire from