THE BATTLE OF DREWRY'S BLUFF.
Capt. Eben Farrand, Confederate States navy, was senior officer in
command of the naval and military forces at Drewry's Bluff. Capt.
A. Drewry commanded a battalion of artillery. The bluff took its
name from his family, in whose possession the land had been many years.
The naval battery, which had been constructed under supervision of
Capt. John Randolph Tucker, and in which the guns from the Jamestown
and Patrick Henry were mounted, was manned by some of the
officers and the crews of the Patrick Henry, Jamestown and Virginia.
The sharpshooters in the rifle pits on the left bank were under command
of Lieut. John Taylor Wood of the navy. Two companies of
marines, commanded by Capt. John D. Simms, also served as sharpshooters.
The Federal fleet consisted of three ironclads, the Monitor,
the Galena and the Naugatuck, and two wooden gunboats, the Aristook
and Port Royal.
The battle opened at 7:30 on the morning of May 15th, and was
fierce and well conducted on both sides but of brief duration. In three
hours the Federal fleet was in retreat. As the Monitor passed down
close to the left bank, Lieutenant Wood called out to the officer in her
pilot-house: "Tell Captain Jeffers that is not the way to Richmond!"
On the Federal side the loss was fourteen killed, eighteen wounded;
the Brooke rifle balls penetrated the ironcladding of the Galena and
crippled her; the Parrot rifled gun on the Naugatuck burst as she fired
her seventeenth round, and she was compelled to drop out of action
before the others withdrew; the Monitor was not injured. The wooden
boats were not actively engaged, but were put to service in towing the
crippled ironclads to a place of safety. The Port Royal came into range
once, and received a shell. On the Confederate side the loss was seven
killed, nine wounded. No serious damage was done the fortifications.
The Confederate squadron was drawn up above the obstructions, which
the enemy's boats did not reach. Midshipman Carroll, of the Patrick
Henry, was killed while acting as signal officer and aide to Captain
Farrand. Brief and comparatively bloodless as was this engagement
it taught the Federal authorities one lesson: That the "On to Richmond!"
movement for which the North was clamoring was not to be
made by way of the James river. The Federal fleet made no further
attempt to pass Fort Drewry. Captain Sidney S. Lee had been ordered
to relieve Captain Farrand in command at Drewry's Bluff, and arrived
on the 15th, after the battle had begun. Declining then to interfere
with Captain Farrand's command, he acted in co-operation with him,
rendering valuable aid and council through the engagement. Subsequently
the obstruction of the river at this point was completed under
Captain Lee's supervision.
Sidney Smith Lee was of the distinguished Lee family whose public
services are interwoven with the history of Virginia on so many pages
of this work. The second son of "Light-Horse Harry," he was born at
Camden, New Jersey, in 1805, while his father was attending a session
of Congress at Philadelphia. In his fourteenth year he was appointed
midshipman in the United States navy, in which service he remained
over forty years. Among the positions of honor he ably filled in this
service were: Commander of war vessel, Mexican war, and engaged in
siege of Vera Cruz; Commandant of United States Naval Academy at
Annapolis three years; Commandant of Philadelphia navy yard three
years; Captain of flag-ship Mississippi, in Commodore Perry's expedition
to Japan; member of the Naval Board to receive and entertain
Japanese Ambassadors in their visit to this country; Chief of the Bureau
of Coast Survey at Washington. This last position he resigned when
Virginia was forced out of the Union, following the course of his
younger brother, General Robert E. Lee, tendering his service to the
State that reckons him one of her honored sons. At the close of the
war Captain Lee was chief of the Bureau of Orders and Detail at Richmond.
He died at Richland, Virginia, on the 22d of July, 1869. He
was the father of Governor Fitzhugh Lee of Virginia, the "Fitz Lee"
of Virginia cavalry fame, and of S. Smith Lee, jr., of the Confederate
States navy.
