Where North Meets South

Where North Meets South. Virginia Fortifies Gloucester Point. “Just throw three or four shells among those blue-bellied Yankees and they’ll scatter like sheep.” Bravado from a North Carolina Confederate in May, 1861, Eighty years after the decisive events at Yorktown, a major war again came to Gloucester Point. This time it was a civil war. As Virginia joined the Confederacy in April, 1861, its leaders were soon defending the Chesapeake tidewater. Within days, the first shots of the war in Virginia were fired at Gloucester Point by Union gunboats., The new Confederate armed forces were rich in engineering talent. General Robert E. Lee sent naval Captain William S. Whittle and Gloucester native Commander Thomas Jefferson Page to secure the entrances to both the York and James Rivers. Engineer Captain Charles H. Dimmock was set to work shoring up the defenses on Gloucester Point., You are standing in the remains of the largest fort ever built here on the Point. By early 1862, Captain Dimmock, using slave labor, had thrown up this enormous earthwork to protect the land side from attack. Nearby, right at the Point, a 100 yard long and 75 yardwide earthen water battery had twelve large guns pointed at passing ships. A covered way linked the two forts., (sidebar) , New Forts with Old Principles , Civil War forts were built with guidelines that went back to 17th-century France. With the advent of artillery, the Marquis de Vauban revolutionized warfare by building forts that had low profiles, interior protection from plunging fire and deep defenses with guns that hit the enemy from every angle. As you walk through these remains, imagine where you would have placed artillery to defend the Point.