“The Army of the Potomac Arriving at Yorktown from Williamsburg,”
Harper’s Weekly, September 6, 1862

AV-2010.6

This illustration depicts the Army of the Potomac en route from Williamsburg to Yorktown. According to the caption published in Harper’s Weekly (page 572), Yorktown served as a point for siege guns to be loaded onto barges and shipped up the river. The soldiers were also relieved of some of their heavier equipment, such as knapsacks, which were stored on the waiting barges in the Yorktown harbor. Hospital vessels docked at the wharf and sick and injured soldiers were loaded onto the ships from a hospital located at Harrison House. Many of the soldiers with lesser injuries limped along the road towards waiting vessels, “…with forms and faces indicative of disease, some with fans, most with staffs in their hands, they slowly walked along, like pilgrims towards a promised land.”

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