Drewry's Bluff was a Civil War engagement fought in Virginia, 1862. It was a Confederate victory.
With the fall of Yorktown, the Confederate ironclad Virginia at Norfolk was scuttled to prevent her capture. This opened the James River to Federal gunboats. On May 15, five gunboats, including the ironclads Monitor and Galena, steamed up the James to test the Richmond defenses. They encountered submerged obstacles and deadly accurate fire from the batteries at Drewry's Bluff, which inflicted severe damage on the Galena. The Federal Navy was turned back.
On May 15, 1862, Union naval forces and Confederate defenders clashed at Drewry's Bluff in Chesterfield County, Virginia, an engagement also remembered as the Battle of Fort Darling or Fort Drewry. This action formed part of the Peninsula Campaign during the American Civil War. Seeking to probe Richmond's defenses, four Union Navy warships pushed up the James River toward the Confederate capital. Among them were the ironclads USS Monitor and Galena, along with USRC Naugatuck, an ironclad vessel belonging to the United States Revenue Cutter Service. Their advance stalled when they ran into obstacles hidden beneath the water's surface. Compounding their trouble, gunners at Fort Darling atop the bluff unleashed devastating fire that battered Galena so badly the flotilla had no choice but to retreat downriver.
In the spring of 1862, Federal forces under Major General George B. McClellan pushed toward Richmond by sea, putting troops ashore at Fort Monroe before advancing northwest along the Virginia Peninsula. Yorktown fell and General Joseph E. Johnston pulled his army back up the Peninsula, leaving only one thing standing between the Union and control of the lower James River and Norfolk: the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. Once Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger pulled the Norfolk garrison out on May 10, Commodore Josiah Tattnall III recognized that Virginia's draft would not allow her to pass through the river's shallower reaches on the way to Richmond. To keep her from falling into enemy hands, she was destroyed off Craney Island on May 11, and with her gone, Federal gunboats gained free access to the James River from Hampton Roads.
From that point, Richmond's only real defense against an assault from the water lay at Fort Darling, positioned on Drewry's Bluff above a tight bend in the river some 7 mi (11 km) south of the capital. Command of the position, held by a mix of marines, sailors, and soldiers, fell to navy Commander Ebenezer Farrand and Captain Augustus H. Drewry of the Southside Heavy Artillery, the landowner for whom the fort was named. Eight guns, a combination of field pieces and five naval cannons (several salvaged from Virginia herself), gave the fort control of the river for a considerable distance in either direction. Additional firepower came from CSS Patrick Henry upstream, whose armament included an 8 in (203 mm) smoothbore, while riflemen took up positions along the banks. Just beneath the bluff, sunken steamers, pilings, debris, and chained-together vessels formed an underwater barrier designed to trap any ship attempting to navigate the narrow channel.
On the fifteenth of May, ships drawn from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron pushed upriver along the James from Fort Monroe, aiming to probe how well Richmond's defenses could hold. Commander John Rodgers led the small force, which included two ironclads, the Monitor under Lieutenant William N. Jeffers and the flagship Galena, plus the screw gunship Aroostook, the side-wheel steamer Port Royal, and the semi-submersible ironclad USRC Naugatuck, built with a twin-screw design.
By quarter to eight in the morning, Galena had approached to within about 600 yards of the fort and dropped anchor. Before Rodgers gave the order to
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