Sewell's Point

At Sewell's Point in Norfolk County, Virginia, the Union gunboat USS Monticello traded artillery fire with Confederate batteries on May 18, 19, and 21, 1861, with the USS Thomas Freeborn lending support. Neither side suffered much damage from these early clashes of the American Civil War, and the outcome remained undecided. Already, by the close of April 1861, the USS Cumberland and a handful of accompanying vessels had been maintaining a Union blockade over ports in southeastern Virginia near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, seizing several vessels that tried to slip past their watch. Monticello's shelling of the Confederate position at Sewell's Point stands among the earliest instances of Union naval combat against Confederate forces. Some accounts have claimed this engagement marked the first shots fired by Union naval forces in the conflict, though an earlier skirmish took place on May 7, 1861, when the USS Yankee traded fire briefly with shore batteries at Gloucester Point, Virginia, along the York River. Those batteries were staffed by Virginia volunteer troops who had not yet been absorbed into the Confederate States Army.

Background

Virginia's state convention scheduled a popular vote for May 23, 1861, yet the delegates had already cast their ballots to pull the commonwealth from the Union on April 17, 1861. That action fell just three days after Fort Sumter's surrender to Confederate forces and a mere two days after Lincoln's call for volunteers meant to reclaim federal property and put down the rebellion.

On the night of April 20, 1861, Charles S. McCauley, who commanded the naval yard at Gosport in Norfolk County, Virginia (the site now known as the Norfolk Naval Yard in Portsmouth), concluded he could not defend the installation against advancing rebels. Acting on his own judgment rather than instructions from Washington, D.C., he ordered his men to torch the facility along with every ship too slow to escape by sail, the USS Merrimack among them. Because of this, Union land forces vanished from the Norfolk section of south Hampton Roads, and they would not return there for over a year.

Ten days afterward, on April 27, Lincoln widened the naval blockade so that it also covered the coastlines of Virginia and North Carolina

Battle

During the Civil War, the Union enforced a naval blockade of Chesapeake Bay, and the gunboat USS Monticello, under Captain Henry Eagle with Lieutenant Daniel L. Braine (later a Rear Admiral) serving as his second, traded artillery fire with Confederate gun positions at Sewell's Point, Virginia, located in Norfolk County (now part of the City of Norfolk). This exchange came as part of a broader effort to seal off the Hampton Roads region in southeastern Virginia. Neither side inflicted much damage on the other. On May 18, 1861, the Monticello directed its guns at the still-unfinished Confederate emplacement at Sewell's Point, a position that overlooked the mouth of the Elizabeth River and the approach to Norfolk's harbor. Since no artillery had yet been mounted there, the bombardment accomplished little.

The situation changed by five o'clock the following evening, May 19, when Confederate forces succeeded in placing three 32-pound guns at the site. Roughly thirty minutes later, the Monticello opened fire on the fortification, and this time the battery answered, forcing the Union vessel to withdraw. Captain Peyton H. Colquitt, leading the Columbus Light Guard out of Georgia, held command of the position. Lacking a Confederate flag to fly, Colquitt instead hoisted the flag of the state of Georgia above the battery.

Two days later, on May 21, 1861, the Monticello returned and managed only two shots at the entrenchment before the battery's return fire once again compelled it to retreat.

Aftermath

Once the fighting ended, the USS Thomas Freeborn became part of the Federal Potomac Flotilla. Commander James H. Ward led this vessel in strikes against Confederate positions where the Potomac River meets Aquia Creek, an engagement now remembered as the Battle of Aquia Creek, spanning May 29, May 30, and June 1, 1861. These assaults accomplished little.

Over the following year, Union ships found themselves repeatedly challenged by the guns at Sewell's Point and nearby batteries. Among these encounters was the famous duel between the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (the latter rebuilt from the captured USS Merrimack) at the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, during which the Sewell's Point defenses played a supporting role, either firing on Union ships directly or backing up Confederate vessels in the fight. Then on May 8, 1862, Union gunboats, the Monitor among them, opened fire once more on the Sewell's Point installations and other nearby targets.

A massive Union force stationed at Fort Monroe, situated just across Hampton Roads from Norfolk, Portsmouth, and the surrounding county in Virginia, posed a looming danger of invasion, even though a good portion of these troops were tied up in the Peninsula Campaign at the time. Facing this threat, Confederate forces pulled out of the Norfolk region on May 9 and in the predawn hours of May 10, 1862. Federal soldiers moved into Norfolk and Portsmouth that same day, May 10. Upon their arrival, they discovered that the Sewell's Point battery and other Confederate fortifications throughout the area stood empty, having been left behind by the retreating defenders.

Nothing remains of the Sewell's Point battery in the present day. Its former site now falls within the boundaries of the U.S. Navy's Norfolk Naval Base.