June 20— We renewed our march last night at two o’clock, and when we arrived within two miles of the White House we halted until daybreak, then moved within close range of the White House. Before we reached the fields near the White House the firing of both musketry and artillery had commenced. When we reached the hills west of the house the lowland along the river was still covered with immense wagon trains in park. We immediately put our guns in battery and opened a brisk fire on them with half of our battalion,— eight pieces,— which quickly stirred up a lively scene among the horses and teamsters, and a busy scramble ensued as to who could leave first.
The trains left under our fire and rushed across the Pamunkey on a pontoon bridge that spanned the river just above the White House. Our fire also waked up a lion in the shape of a well fortified Yankee battery near the river, which opened a rapid fire on us, and the thundering sound of booming cannon rolled in a roaring flood across the lowlands of the Pamunkey and the York.
Just then the sight was grand and impressive, and the scene inspiring. There before us lay the placid waters of the Pamunkey, glowing in the opening morning light like a band of silver, reflecting on its bosom the mellow tinge of a morning sky. The silvery water was marred by the darker track of the pontoon, crowded from shore to shore with fleeing wagons jammed close together, and all covered with white canvas, presenting the striking appearance of white water fowl gliding swiftly across the shimmering water. Beyond the pontoon and farther down the river toward the York a thin white morning mist hung over the water like a curtain of draping lace, under which the silent waters glided beyond our ken. When the bright lances of the morning sun shattered the veil of mist and melted the fragments into clear air, we discovered two Yankee gunboats on the river, which had been hidden in the folds of the mist and were then in plain view, and ready to open fire on us. This they did at first sight, and for one hour the artillery fire raged fiercely and in a business-like way on both sides, without the least lull, cessation, or break.
Among the armament of the gunboats was a thirty-two pounder, which the enemy fired at us frequently, and we soon learned that there was no virtue and less use for us to fool around such a war machine with our little three-inch rifle field pieces, and we ceased firing.
I saw several shell from the thirty-two pounder fly way above our heads, and they glittered in the sunlight like polished steel, and whizzed through the air with speed enough when they passed us to carry them a mile farther, and then have momentum enough left to dig a ditch that looks like a miniature railroad cut.
While we were firing, a shell from one of their gunboats exploded in front of my gun, and a half-pound fragment gave me a friendly call by striking me in the breast, just interesting enough to bruise severely, without drawing blood.
After we had ceased firing some four or five of us lay under a little apple tree, when one of the enemy’s thirty-two pound shell exploded at least two hundred feet above us,— I saw it explode,— yet a slug from it wounded one of our men that was lying under the tree close by my side. The Yanks were surely cutting close and trying to gather me in to-day, but I am still on the sunny side of the dead line this evening and ready for rations.
The Yankee gunboats shelled the country all around us after we ceased firing. This afternoon we withdrew our guns from under the fire of the gunboats and moved about a mile down the river and bivouacked for the night. The gunboats still lay in front of the White House when we left.
The White House is on the south side of the Pamunkey in New Kent County, about twenty-two miles a little northeast from Richmond and about thirteen miles from the head of York River. The confluence of the Mattapony and the Pamunkey forms the York at West Point, at the southeast corner of King William County.
The White House is noted as being the place where George Washington wooed, won, and wed his wife a little over a hundred years ago.
