Charging the Works at Yorktown

Sunday, May 4, 1862

Before dawn the regiment was ordered to arms as a result of infantry firing on the right of their line. Colonel William Lee was ordered to advance on the enemy line, as it was reported that the Confederates had evacuated. The regiment advanced through dense woods and crossed a muddy swamp, and just before 8:00 AM Colonel Lee planted the flag of the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment on the redoubt, the first United States flag to wave on the enemy works at Yorktown. ¹

References:
¹George A. Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1861 - 1865 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Riverside Press, 1906), 85-86.