nearly nine o'clock in the morning
Their superior knowledge of the section , with its numerous minor swamp-roads , forest-paths and approaches necessarily unknown to the Union forces , gave them immense advantages , such as they had not been slow to improve , in corresponding circumstances , during the whole of the preceding campaign . Aware of these facts , a night attack on Monday might have been expected by the Federal officers , and the men had slept on their arms in anticipation of it . But White Oak Swamp had been too severe a trial of courage and energy ; they were not disposed to attack again before receiving more of the reinforcements steadily pouring onward from Richmond ; and as a consequence the wearied troops had been allowed to pass the night without disturbance , and they had even overhauled the remains of rations remaining in their haversacks and made their scanty and unsavory breakfasts , long before the expected hostile cloud burst upon them . It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning when some of the scouts of Smith 's brigade came in and announced the enemy advancing in force . In a moment after , the rattling rolls of drums and the brazen notes of bugles resounded among the bivouacs ; and with the regimental and national colors planted at prominent points before arranged , the regiments formed upon them and took up the positions assigned . Some of the brigades were hidden in the cornfields adjoining the encampment ; some were drawn up along the lines of fences , affording little protection , but obscuring knowledge of the field by an enemy attempting to reconnoitre from a distance ; several regiments were thrown into the woods right and left ; and a considerable portion of the command awaited the attack on open ground , without other protection than God , the justice of their cause , and their own valor . Kern 's Pennsylvania Battery , Martin 's Massachusetts , and Carlisle 's and Tidball 's Regular Batteries , were on the ground .