Peninsula In Passage

The USC Harriet Lane

Civil War on the Nansemond Defensive Forts along the Shorelines

The Nansemond River was the gateway to the town of Suffolk and a major Confederate supply route for goods coming in through North Carolina and on to Petersburg and Richmond. The Confederates established a battery at Pig Point across the Nansemond River from Newport News with guns captured from the Gasport Navy Yard. The Portsmouth Rifle Company, under command of Captain John C. Owens, manned the battery’s rifled cannons. Other defensive earthen work forts were located on both sides of the Nansemond for twenty miles to Suffolk. The remnants of Confederate earthen works at Town Point were still visible prior to development of the property in the 1990s. In June 1861, Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, in order to clear a route for the capture of Suffolk, sought to neutralize the Confederate battery at Pig Point. At 9:00 A.M. on 5 June, the steamer USC Harriet Lane shelled the battery. The Portsmouth Rifles, manning the guns there, returned fire and struck the vessel twice. One shot hit a tub of musket balls; the flying balls wounded six men. No Confederates were injured in the engagement, which ended after twenty minutes when the Harriet Lane withdrew.

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