First battle at Drewry's Bluff

First battle at Drewry's Bluff

Part of: American Civil War

Drewry's Bluff, 1865, by Levy & Cohen.

date	May 15, 1862
place	Chesterfield County , Virginia , USA
output	Confederation victory

Parties to the conflict
United States	Confederate States of America
Commander
John Rodgers	E. Farrand William Mahone Sidney Smith Lee John Taylor Wood
Troop strength
5 gunboats	Fort Darling garrison
losses
24	15th

The First Skirmish at Drewry's Bluff , also known as the Skirmish at Fort Darling , was an act of combat during the American Civil War and took place on May 15, 1862 in southern Virginia as part of the Peninsula Campaign .

Eight-inch Columbiade inside the fort

After the fall of Yorktown , the Confederate ironclad Virginia was sunk by the crew themselves to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Northern states . The loss of this ship opened the James and with it the waterway to Richmond for the US Navy .

Near Richmond, the James flowed south for about 10 kilometers and then back east after a 90 degree bend. Here the Confederates have been building fortifications (later Fort Darling ) on the hill Drewrys Bluff , which rose about 30 meters above the river on the western bank since March 17th .

Skirmish at Drewry's Bluff, 1862

The positions were equipped with a heavy ten- and two eight-inch muzzle-loading guns (so-called Columbiaden ), and six more guns were positioned a little to the side near the course of the river. In the river bed itself, obstacles (including ship hulls) were sunk to block the river. On May 15, 1862, the deposited USS Galena (flagship) and the USS Monitor , the first two US battleships , accompanied by the three gunboats Aroostook , Port Royal and Naugatuck, up the river. The Union flotilla should coordinate its advance with the armed forces on land and attack Richmond. The fort's crew, which had included the former Virginia crew since the beginning of May, used their guns to fire the Union’s ships.

The James from Drewry Bluff from

The Galena came within 550 meters of the fort and anchored at around 7.45 am. When she was able to deploy her guns herself, two Confederate shells hit the flagship, which was only slightly armored at around 80 mm. In the now flaming battle of over three hours, during which the Galena in particular received 44 hits and was severely damaged as a result, the personnel losses were correspondingly high, with 14 killed and 13 injured (out of 164 men).

The Union ship fought the Confederate position with its two 100-pound Parrott cannons until the ammunition supplies ran out. Seven men from the fort's crew were killed in the bombardment, eight were wounded, and the plant did not suffer any major damage. Two sailors and John Freeman Mackie , a Marine (the first ever member of the service), were later awarded the Medal of Honor . Mackie took over the gun operation with other marines , as the hits of the Confederate soldiers fell or were wounded a large part of the Galena gunners .

The Monitor was also hit several times, but the heavier armor protection held up. The tower ship was unable to aim its two Dahlgren cannons high enough to counter fire from the fort on the hill at close range, but it could not do anything effective from a distance either. Because of the greater distance and the resilience of the monitor , the gunners of the southern states concentrated mainly on the Galena .

The Naugatuck had to break off the fight after a gun crack. Furthermore, the crews of the ships of Confederate snipers who fought them from the embankments had to defend themselves.

The two wooden gunboats Aroostook and Port Royal stayed behind and could not intervene in the battle. The captain of the Port Royal was wounded by a sniper. At around 11 am, the flotilla was finally forced to turn downriver towards City Point, Charles City County .

Richmond was subsequently spared from attacks from the river side and the Confederate fortifications around Drewrys Bluff were further expanded. They were to play an important role in May 1864 during the Bermuda Hundred campaign (see Battle of Proctors Creek ).

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1. ↑ ^{a b} Kennedy, Frances H., ed., The Civil War Battlefield Guide , 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998, ISBN 0-395-74012-6 , p. 91
2. ↑ Drewry's Bluff - nps.gov, US National Park Service
3. ↑ Coski, John M., Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron (Reprint of the 1996 ed.), Savas Beatie, 2005, ISBN 1-932714-15-4 , pp 46f