GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

No. 1. April 18, 1862.

I. Major General J. B. Magruder is assigned to the command of the right of the position commencing at Dam No. 1 and extending to the river.

II. Major General D. H. Hill is assigned to the command of Yorktown, including the Redoubts Nos.4 and 5.

III. Major General James Longstreet is assigned to the command of the center.

IV. Major General G. W. Smith is assigned to the command of the reserve.

By command of General Johnston:

THOS. G. RHETT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. RIGHT WING, ARMY OF THE PENINSULA,
Lee's Farm, April 19, 1862.

In making known to the right wing of the Army of the Peninsula the foregoing orders of the general commanding,* Major-General Magruder deems it a duty he owes to the soldiers of the Army of the Peninsula to express publicly the approval with which their uniform good conduct has inspired him.

Duty has exacted many sacrifices of them and they have been cheerfully made.

The spade and the ax have been no less familiar to their hardy hands than the musket and the sword.

Placed by the determination of our Government upon a narrow tongue of land, washed on three sides by navigable waters and ever menaced in front by the frowning fortress of Monroe, the soldiers of the old Army of the Peninsula have ever kept faithful ward and vigil over that avenue to the heart of the Confederacy intrusted to their watchful care.

By their labors, skill, and courage the broad waters of York and James Rivers have been locked to the progress of the invaders by iron gates, which his energy and fertility of resources have yet been unable to unlock; and when pressed back by overwhelming numbers from that advanced line of defense, which, with a fourth of the enemy now present under our flag, would have been impregnable even to the vast hordes of our enemy, the little Army of the Peninsula fell back with its front to the marching enemy until it reached the Warwick River, along which its skill and energy had constructed a line of defense sufficient to temporarily stay the swelling advance of invasion.

The major-general late commanding this little army cannot refrain from declaring his gratification at the conduct of the troops, when, on Saturday, the 12th of this month, the immense legions of the enemy made their first demonstration along our line, embracing a front of 10 miles, and defended by a force, exclusive of the fixed garrison of Yorktown and Mulberry Island, of scarce half as many thousand men as there were miles to defend. Whenever along this line the enemy ventured to approach he was met by the roar of your artillery and the unwavering ranks of your soldiery.

To accomplish this almost incredible result, when an army of twenty times your numbers was checked and held at bay along a front of 10

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*See General Orders, No. 1, next preceding.

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