DEFENSES ALONG THE POTOMAC, YORK AND RAPPAHANNOCK RIVERS.
One of the first official acts of General Lee as commander of the Virginia
forces was to provide for the construction of batteries to guard
Virginia waters against the passage of hostile vessels. In May, 1861,
a battery was erected at Acquia creek, on the Potomac, under supervision
of Confederate States naval officers, Captain William C. Lynch,
Commander Robert D. Thorburn, and Lieutenants H. H. Lewis and
John Wilkinson. This protected the terminus of the railroad to Richmond,
guarded the approaches to Fredericksburg from the Potomac,
and at the same time menaced Federal navigation of that river. Enlistments
for the navy not having fairly begun, the battery was
manned by infantry volunteers, Captain Lynch in command.
The Federal authorities sent the newly organized Potomac flotilla to
destroy the battery, three ships, Commander James H. Ward: the
Freeborn, three guns, the Resolute, two guns, the Anascostia, two guns.
On May 31st and June 1st, these ships shelled the battery without effect.
Captain Lynch, in his official report, dated June 2, 1861, says:
"On Friday two out of three steamers abreast of the battery opened
fire on us, and continued the cannonade for three hours, when they
withdrew. * * * Upon our part no one was injured. Yesterday the
steamers, which had laid off during the night, were reinforced by the
Pawnee, and at 11:30 they commenced a brisk cannonade, which continued
with little interruption until about 4:30 p. m., during which the
Pawnee fired 392 shot and shell, and the other steamers 207, the
greater portion of the latter being rifled shell." The firing from the
battery damaged the Freeborn so much she was obliged to put back to
Washington for repairs. The only casualty on the Confederate side
was one man wounded in hand, losing a finger.
A battery of ten heavy guns was recommended for Mathias Point,
that bluff headland commanding the waters of the Potomac for more
than a mile. Before work was begun, June 26th, Commander Ward
detailed a party from the Resolute, which he accompanied, to seize
and hold the Point, and erect a Federal battery. The detail landed,
but were met by Virginia troops under Colonel R. M. Mayo, and driven
back to the boats with heavy loss, Commander Ward among the killed.
The Virginia troops held the Point, and a heavy battery was erected
there. In September and October four heavy batteries, mounting in
all twenty guns, were constructed at Evansport, near the mouth of
Quantico creek. These swept the Potomac, which was but a mile and a
half wide at this point, and with channel near the Virginia shore.
The batteries at Acquia creek, Mathias Point and Evansport were
practically a blockade of the Potomac waters, and the blockade was
maintained through the entire winter following. This was not only a
serious inconvenience to the Federal authorities at Washington, and to
the residents of that city, but also had its effect at the North. The
New York Tribune, of March 1, 1862, said: "There has been no safe
communication by water between this city and the capital of this
nation during all this time—a period of six months. This is one of the
most humiliating of all the national disgraces to which we have been
compelled to submit. It has been most damaging to us in the eyes of
the world," etc.
Shortly after these batteries were unmasked, a small steamer, the
George Page, which had been captured by the Confederates, was armed
and renamed the City of Richmond. The Federal authorities, apprehending
an invasion of Maryland from the vicinity of Acquia creek,
sent a division from the Army of the Potomac to the Maryland shore
of the Potomac. These troops camped a mile or so back from the
river, from Port Tobacco, opposite Acquia creek, to within about
twenty miles of Washington. During the winter of 1861-2 the saucy
little City of Richmond made several dashes across the river, shelling
these camps, keeping up the fears of a Confederate landing in Maryland,
aiding also in checking navigation of the river. This boat was burned
by Confederate orders in March, 1862, in Quantico creek, when the
troops and guns were removed from the batteries of the lower Potomac
to Fredericksburg.
Other fortifications erected in the summer of 1861 and winter of
1861-2 were: batteries at Harper's Ferry, covering Bolivar, and approaches
by the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers; batteries at Lowery's
and Accoheek Points (Fort Lowery), Gray's Point, Cherry Point, guarding
the Rappahannock river; batteries at Gloucester Point, West Point
and Yorktown, guarding the York river. These, and other batteries
constructed to guard the Potomac, York and Rappahannock rivers,
were manned mainly by infantry troops and commanded by naval
officers. In the spring of 1862 the Confederate base was changed from
the Potomac to the Rappahannock; from York river to the Chickahominy.
The troops and guns were transferred, and batteries along the
Potomac and York abandoned.
