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.  

   

Fort Harrison: "The Most Destructive Single Shot of the War," September 29, 1864

On the anniversary of the Union attack on Fort Harrison, I've included some excerpts below from an account about the battle that appears (in full) in Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans. This story was originally found in a handwritten note in the Bernard Collection at the Historical Society of Western Virginia in Roanoke, and can been seen online at the Historical Society's website.

The note contains a previously unknown account from Cornelius Tacitus Allen, a captain in the Lunenburg Light Artillery. During Grant’s fifth offensive of the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in late September 1864, Union forces under General Benjamin Butler stormed Fort Harrison, a key position on the Confederate line protecting Richmond. Captain Allen and his men manned the "Iron Battery" on the James River near Fort Harrison but proceeded to Fort Harrison that morning with a few companies and two light artillery pieces.

Civil War Talks, which I edited along with John Horn and John Selby, contains dozens of previously unknown accounts like the one below from nearly every campaign in the east, including the Peninsula, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, and Petersburg.

"Capture of Fort Harrison on the Chaffins Farm line of Works" by William Waud, LOC

Excerpts from Account of Captain Cornelius Tacitus Allen At Fort Harrison
 (September 29, 1864)

On the morning of the attack, Captain Allen commanded a "little six-pound" battery at a redoubt about 200 yards west of Fort Harrison. After sunrise on the 29th, he and his men could see the Union force advancing along the public road from the direction of Dutch Gap. His two guns had a "fair broadside" upon the enemy, who did not fire at all during their advance by his recollection.

"As soon as they came within 300 yards of my battery, I opened on them, and did some execution. I fired one shell at a cluster of horsemen, believing from the uniforms sabres, feathers in the hats &c. &c. that it was the Commanding General with his staff. I missed them by a scratch but they noticed that I had my guns on them and scattered. I was afterwards told by a prisoner that it was Gen’l B. F. Butler and his staff."

The Union column soon charged and the attackers crowded onto the Fort Harrison's parapet.

"I ordered the gunner to put in a double charge of “grape.” . . . Just as that time, the Federals on the parapet gave the shout of victory. I aimed the gun at that crowd and pulled the lanyard! The shot cut a swath through the crowd that was [approaching]. The gun “reared up” and fell backwards. I stooped beneath the smoke, saw the terrible effect of the shot, and then ran for dear life down the line of intrenchment to Fort Maury--where the line crossed the turnpike going to Richmond."

After the war, Allen met a Captain Fessenden (most likely Charles B. Fessenden of the 9th USCTs) from the Freedman's Bureau in Lunenburg County Virginia. After some discussion, Allen learned that Fessenden had witnessed that shot from Allen's battery during the battle.

"In answer to questions from me he said he was in the charge and gave an accurate description of its incidents, told how the men crowded on the parapet of the fort, and how destructive was the last shot from the neighboring battery. I then told him that I had charge of that battery and fired that last shot. He then said “Then, sir, you fired, in my opinion, the most destructive single shot of the war. It killed and wounded 32 men on the parapet.”