Webster, by his own wish, had been put upon the look-out by the captain of the boat, and he keenly watched for signs of danger. When they had traveled nearly half the distance across the bay, he spied a point of light to leeward, and at once called Marshall's attention to it.
"It is a gunboat with a light on her bows," said the latter. "Let her come. She can't catch us, for with oar present headway we are not to be overhauled by any boat on this water."
The canoe was headed due west for about fourteen miles, then south-west by west for ten or twelve miles, then due west again to Gloucester Point. The entire run was made in three and a half hours, the sailing distance being about thirty miles.
On nearing Gloucester Point, they were hailed by a sentinel, with the usual challenge:
The blockade-runner sent back the answer:
"Stand, Marshall, and give the countersign!"
"Marshall, with mail boat and passengers."
A few minutes later the passengers disembarked, and found themselves in a rebel camp.
Webster, with others, went to Marshall's shanty--a rude, wooden structure, which that worthy had built on the Point for the accommodation of his passengers--and there the remainder of the night was spent in the refreshing companionship of Morpheus.
On the following morning Webster was up and astir at an early hour. He ascertained that the encampment at Gloucester Point consisted of two regiments of infantry, two companies of cavalry, and one field battery of six guns, all under the command of Col. Charles H. Crump. The entrenchments comprised an area of about fifteen acres, and the main breastwork on the beach consisted of a heavy earth-bank, walled on the inside with split pine logs set up on end. About the center of this breastwork was a sixty-four-pound gun, mounted on a high carriage, which traversed in a circle commanding a sweep of the whole land side of the entrenchments, where there was a clean field of about seven hundred acres bounded by timber on the north and York river on the south.
General Magruder had command of this division of the army, including the forces at Gloucester Point, Yorktown and all the peninsula bounded by the James and York rivers, extending down to Fortress Monroe. The division embraced thirty-three regiments of infantry and cavalry.