The Battle of Wilson's Wharf (also called the Battle of Fort Pocahontas) was a battle in Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
On May 24, Confederate Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry division (about 2,500 men) attacked the Union supply depot at Wilson's Wharf, on the James River in eastern Charles City, Virginia. They were repulsed by two African American regiments (about 1,100 men) of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) under the command of Brig. Gen. Edward A. Wild, who were in the process of constructing a fortification there, which was subsequently named Fort Pocahontas. The battle was the first combat encounter of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia with African-American troops.
Wild, a physician and ardent abolitionist, lost his left arm at the Battle of South Mountain in 1862. After recovering, he raised a unit of former slaves called Wild's African Brigade. During the winter of 1863–64, Wild led these soldiers in an expedition on the coast of North Carolina, terrifying a local white population accustomed to African slavery since the early 18th century.
Wild's brigade landed in Virginia in May 1864 and began building the fort at Wilson's Wharf, one of a series of protective outposts guarding supply lines for Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler's Bermuda Hundred Campaign. The wharf was at a strategic bend in the James River, overlooked by high bluffs, 2 miles (3.2 km) from Sherwood Forest, the home of former U.S. President John Tyler. By this time, Wild's unit had a frightening reputation among Southerners. Wild's subsequent actions alarmed them all the more. His soldiers freed and recruited slaves and in one case whipped a plantation owner who had a reputation for harshness to his slaves. The Richmond newspapers denounced these activities and put intense pressure on the government of Jefferson Davis to put a stop to Wild's depredations.
Succumbing to the political pressure, Davis's military adviser, Gen. Braxton Bragg, ordered Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry division to "break up this nest and stop their uncivilized proceedings." While his uncle, Robert E. Lee, was battling Ulysses S. Grant at the North Anna River, Fitz Lee took elements of three cavalry brigades plus the 5th South Carolina Cavalry Regiment (2,500 men and one cannon) on a 40 miles (64 km) march from Atlee's Station to reach Wilson's Wharf. The Confederate general expected to fight a rabble, but instead found the defenders of Fort Pocahontas alert and ready for action.
Wild commanded 1,100 men and two cannons. The Union force consisted of the 1st United States Colored Infantry Regiment (1st USCI) and four companies of the 10th USCI. Battery M, 3rd New York Artillery was the only all-white unit in the defenses. The gunboat USS Dawn lay in the James River to deliver fire support to the fort's defenders. The fort was about 0.8 miles (1.3 km) long, straddling the road to the wharf. It was anchored on both ends—to the west on a bluff and on the east by a branch of Kennon Creek—so it could not be flanked. It was fronted by a deep, broad ditch and abatis.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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