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inquiries revealed that Suffolk was already under siege by Longstreet’s forces. The trains had been canceled and there were no available wagons. The soldiers were forced to march twenty-seven miles over railroad ties, loaded down with all their equipment. It was dark by the time they reached the Suffolk camp. No one had bothered to prepare for the regiment’s arrival, so the men went from tent to tent seeking a place to sleep. The lieutenant colonel, Edgar Kimball, found an old friend from the Mexican War and spent a few hours warming himself with his tent companion’s whiskey.

A little after 2:00 A.M., Kimball remembered his orders to report to General George Getty’s headquarters. On the way, however, he came across General Michael Corcoran, the boisterous commander of the Irish Brigade. In one version of what happened next, Kimball went to the aid of a sentry who was shouting at several men on horseback. Corcoran, on the other hand, claimed that Kimball suddenly emerged from the darkness and grabbed his bridle, demanding that the countersign be given. But according to all versions of the incident, Corcoran refused to give it, saying, “I am General Corcoran and staff.” This was not enough for Kimball, who began brandishing his sword, whereupon Corcoran shot him at point-blank range. Journalists at the camp rushed to telegraph the news of his death.

Kimball’s insistence on the proper countersign was initially commended as a wise precaution when the guerrilla John Mosby was about: “Under the circumstances, with a Rebel force in close proximity, an enemy might have said the same thing,” wrote a New York correspondent. When the Zouaves learned of their colonel’s death, many of them picked up their weapons and started for Corcoran’s camp. Fearing a riot, General Getty had the bugle sounded for assembly, which the men instinctively obeyed. He sat on his horse in front of the regiment and made a conciliatory speech, promising that there would be an investigation into Kimball’s shooting. The soldiers calmed down as they listened. At first they were rather pleased to hear that the general was sending them away from the camp at once. A few hours later, when they had reached Fort Nansemond, the men realized that the general had ordered them to the “extreme front.” The Zouaves spent the next twenty-two days under continuous fire from Confederate rifle pits, “so fully occupied with the enemy in front,” wrote the regiment’s historian, “that if his satanic majesty had wished to brew mischief he could have found no heart or hands in the regiment to do it for him.” None of the regiment was allowed to attend Kimball’s funeral in New York on April 20.21

As more Union troops were sent to reinforce Suffolk, Longstreet realized that his small army would soon be radically outnumbered. He saw no reason to continue the siege, since enough bacon and grain to feed Lee’s army for two months had been collected during the so-called Tidewater Campaign. Longstreet was preparing to withdraw his men when a telegram arrived on May 3, 1863, ordering his immediate return to the Army of Northern Virginia: “Fighting Joe” Hooker was on the move. Longstreet tried to move as quickly as he could without jeopardizing the safety of the long wagon trains filled with supplies.

George Henry Herbert’s term of enlistment ended on the same day as Longstreet’s retreat. The Zoaves threatened to mutiny if they were kept at Suffolk a minute longer, sufficiently alarming the authorities into providing troop transports to take the Zouaves straight to New York.

Longstreet doubted that he would reach Lee in time to help him stop General Hooker’s advance. Suffolk was more than 150 miles from Fredericksburg and “Fighting Joe” had been counting on this when he devised his battle plan. The two armies had passed the winter facing each other across the banks of the Rappahannock River. Hooker tried to give the impression that he was contemplating another frontal assault on Fredericksburg in order to hide the fact that he was looking for places to ford the river upstream. Richmond was