The Fight For the Old North State at Arlington Library

A donated copy of The Fight For the Old North State is now on the shelves at the Arlington Public Library. Happy to support this great public library. The staff has been so helpful through years of research. And happy to make the book available to my Arlington friends.

Signal Hill Battery vs. The James River Squadron: October 22, 1864

Excerpt from Map of Bermuda Hundred by N. Michler (LOC)

ON THIS DAY, 1864.  

Early on Sunday morning, October 22, 1864, two Union batteries, including seven heavy Parrott guns in a new work along Signal Hill, opened fire on the Confederate James River Squadron resting within easy range. Placed during the night, the guns surprised the crews of the thin-skinned gunboats, which steamed out of danger, tucking under the river bank at Chaffin’s Bluff. The ironclads also sought cover and, for a time, hid under the bank downstream from the Union guns. The shelling blew a hole in the Fredericksburg’s smokestack, which protruded from the river bank’s cover. The wood splinters from a shattered screen wounded five men aboard. The ironclads eventually escaped upstream, out of range. Across the river, Confederate shore batteries joined in, but the boats engagement soon ended. Discussed in Chapter 7 of Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864 (Kent State Press, 2013).

Interview on Civil War Talk Radio: The Fight For the Old North State

I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to talk with Gerry Prokopowicz on Civil War Talk Radio on October 16. We discussed my new book, The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864.

You can listen to the recorded program at the Impediments of War website or the Civil War Talk Radio podcast.