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Updated: April 30, 2025
At the battle of Drewry's Bluff, Va., Captain Brooks was three times wounded, and lost sixty-eight out of the seventy-five men carried into action, twenty-five being left dead upon the field.
And from Drewry's Bluff, eight miles south of Richmond, the masts of the foremost Federal vessels could be seen coming up the James, where, on the eleventh, the Merrimac, having grounded, had been destroyed by her own commander. But the General Assembly of Virginia, passionately seconded by the City Council, petitioned the Government to stand its ground "till not a stone was left upon another."
No sooner had half his army been badly defeated on the eighteenth than news came that Sigel was in full retreat instead of cutting off supplies from Lee. Then came news of Butler's retreat from Drewry's Bluff, close in to Richmond.
Their progress was very slow; there was time to obstruct the passage, and batteries were hastily improvised. The people made a mighty effort; and on the commanding heights of Drewry's Bluff, six miles below the city, might be seen senators and merchants, bankers and clergymen, digging parapets and hauling timber, in company with parties of soldiers and gangs of slaves. Heavy guns were mounted.
The fundamental idea was a Fabian defensive at Richmond, a vigorous offensive in the Valley, to produce Federal dispersion between these points and Washington; then rapid concentration against McClellan on the Chickahominy. The unsupported Federal gunboats were stopped and turned back at the boom near Drewry's Bluff.
In addition to the city contingent and those who garrisoned the forts where heavy ordnance only was used, the line of march was joined by the marine department, which had been doing duty on the river craft about Dutch Gap, Drewry's and Chaffin's bluffs, etc. Altogether, it was a motley combination, which afforded much amusement and the usual sallies of wit at each other's expense.
With the first appearance of dawn the blowing up of the naval vessels in the river began, culminating in a gigantic explosion that made the earth tremble. This last was the magazine at Drewry's Bluff.
Every man in Richmond who could do a hand's turn and who was not already in arms marched out to complete the defenses of the James at Drewry's Bluff. Senators, bankers, bondmen and free, merchants, laborers, and ministers of all religions, dug earthworks, hauled cannon, piled ammunition, or worked, wet to the waist, at the big boom that was to stop the ships and hold them under fire.
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