Rebel Stand at Drewry's Bluff

By Jon Guttman

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While Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac slowly advanced on Richmond in May 1862, the Union Navy made its own play to seize the Confederate capital.

In mid-May 1862–little more than a year after South Carolina secessionists had fired the opening rounds of the Civil War at Fort Sumter–the end of the conflict seemed invitingly within the Union's reach. In spite of a spirited and resourceful defense by a hopelessly outnumbered Confederate Army, aided by a Union commander who constantly overestimated the Rebels' numbers and consequently had been advancing up the Virginia Peninsula at a snail's pace, a powerful Union force was now making its way up the James River toward the Confederate capital of Richmond.

In Richmond itself, panic reigned. Runaway soldiers and refugee families poured in from the peninsula, doubling the city's prewar population of 40,000. Some residents set aside small quantities of tobacco to be used as currency in their future dealings with Union occupation forces, while others fled. President Jefferson Davis' wife, Varina, and their four children were sent to Raleigh, N.C. Preparations were made to ship the Confederate archives to South Carolina, while the treasury's gold was crated up, ready to be removed at a moment's notice aboard a train kept under steam for just that purpose.

Given the lethargy with which Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan was executing his end run up the peninsula, it was fitting that the cause of Richmond's atmosphere of impending doom was not his Army of the Potomac but the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

When McClellan commenced his Peninsula offensive in March 1862, he was supported by a sizable naval contingent that would accompany his army as it advanced up the James River. On March 8, however, a serious threat emerged in the form of the Confederate ship Virginia, an armored casemate ram converted from the salvaged burned-out hull of the Union steam sloop Merrimack. Accompanied by the wooden gunboats Patrick Henry, Jamestown and Teaser, Virginia attacked the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads, where she rammed and sank the wooden frigate Cumberland, set the frigate Congress ablaze and forced the steam frigates Minnesota, Roanoke and St. Lawrence to run aground. Those unfortunate Union vessels thus had the dubious distinction of being the first victims of an ironclad warship.

It was Virginia's turn to be surprised, however, when she returned to Hampton Roads the next morning to finish off the still-grounded Minnesota. There to confront the Rebel ram was the new and even more innovative Union ironclad Monitor, which had a round, two-gun turret mounted on her low, flat hull. History was made for the second day in a row, as two ironclad vessels fought each other for the first time.

The two-hour duel ended in a standoff, with little damage inflicted on either side. Virginia was compelled to withdraw to Sewell's Point, however, and she then retired up the Elizabeth River to Norfolk. Virginia's captain, Franklin Buchanan, had been wounded in the fight, and Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall took command of the ironclad.

During the next two months, whenever Virginia ventured into Hampton Roads, the Union naval commander there, Commodore Louis M. Goldsborough, would prudently withdraw his fleet to within range of Fort Monroe's guns. As for Monitor, President Abraham Lincoln had given specific orders not to risk her in another confrontation with Virginia until more ironclads could be built. Consequently, when the Confederate ram entered Hampton Roads on April 11 and captured three Union transports within sight of Monitor, the Union ironclad did not steam out to engage her. But when Monitor and five other Union vessels bombarded Sewell's Point on May 8, Virginia did come out to confront them, only to see the Union vessels retire beyond cannon range. An uneasy standoff ensued.

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