Dismal Swamp Canal

Dismal Swamp Canal. Strategic Waterway. On February 10, 1862 CSS Beaufort steamed past this spot, racing for Norfolk. She and CSS Appomattox were the survivors of fights with Union naval forces off Roanoke Island in Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. Beaufort , a steam-powered, single-screw, iron-hulled gunboat, squeezed through the South Mills lock into the Dismal Swamp Canal. Appomattox, 21 feet in width, was three feet too wide to pass through the lock; the Confederates burned her there. , The canal enabled the rapid transport of men and supplies. In April 1862, fearing that the Confederates planned to send an ironclad to Albemarle Sound via the canal, Union forces under Gen. Jesse L. Reno attacked the Confederate fortifications at South Mills. Although the Federals forced a repeat, they were unable to destroy the locks there. , After the Federal capture of Norfolk on May 10, 1862, this area lay between the city and Union-controlled eastern North Carolina. Confederate sympathizers used the canal to smuggle supplies, and guerrillas hid in the Great Dismal Swamp--previously the reserve of escaped slaves--to raid Union picket posts. , During December 5-24, 1863, Union Gen. Edward A. Wild led a punitive expedition for Norfolk along the canal to South Mills and Camden Court House. Wild command U.S. Colored Troops, which white residents resented. Although guerrillas emerged from the swamp and "pestered" him, they did not keep him from burning farms and confiscating property. Wild estimated that his raid freed 2,500 slaves.