The Skirmish at Cedar Lane was a Civil War skirmish fought near Newport News, Virginia on July 12, 1861, as part of the operations on the Virginia Peninsula. The skirmish was the first Civil War combat, and first victory, of future Confederate General John Bell Hood.
Following the Confederate victory at the Battle of Big Bethel, war on the Peninsula became a stalemate as both sides began to build fortifications. Both armies sent small patrols to forage for supplies and scout for enemy activity, but neither sought a decisive engagement.
On July 5, 1861, Confederate Lt-Col. Charles Dreux, commander of the 1st Louisiana Infantry Battalion, was killed at the Skirmish at Smith's Farm. Dreux was the first Confederate field officer killed in the Civil War, his death was mourned throughout the South, and many Confederate soldiers sought to avenge his death.
Confederate forces were camped at Young's Mill in Newport News, and eager for revenge, sought an opportunity for to engage the Federals. The commander of the Confederate cavalry in Newport News was Maj. John Bell Hood.
Early on the morning of July 12, Hood led a group of 125+ men from the 3rd Virginia Cavalry Regiment toward the Union lines near the southern tip of Newport News to scout and possibly engage the Federals.
7th New York Infantry Regiment - Lt. Oscar Von Heringen (40+ men)
3rd Virginia Cavalry Regiment - Maj. John Bell Hood (125+ men)
That same morning, 40+ men from Company E of the 7th New York left Camp Butler to forage for firewood. As the company searched the woods around Young's Mill for firewood, a detachment led by Lt. Von Heringen patrolled farther North without orders, closer to the Confederate lines. The men were spotted by Hood's cavalry scouts near Cedar Lane and Nelson Smith's farm just before noon. A second detachment under Lt. Mosebach remained with the rest of the company in the forest.
Hood mistook Von Heringen's patrol for a Union ambush and sent a detachment of 30 men, mostly from the Mecklenburg Dragoons, who were armed with Sharps breech-loading carbines, through the thick woods to confront the Federals. Flanking Von Heringen's group, Hood's men surprised Lt. Mosebach's detachment, and a sharp skirmish broke out in the woods. Mosebach ordered his men to regroup on the open ground near Nelson Smith's house.
“The enemy having been driven from cover in a very rapid and disorderly flight in the direction of Captain Smith’s house, on the banks of James River, I then ordered a charge, and the detachments dashed gallantly down upon them, taking the flying enemy prisoners.”
With Mosebach's men surrounded by the Confederates, Von Heringen's patrol became cut off, and most of his men subsequently surrendered.
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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