City Point | |
|---|---|
Former town | |
 | |
  City Point Location within the state of Virginia | |
| Coordinates: 37°18′54″N77°16′37″W / 37.31500°N 77.27694°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Virginia |
| County | Prince George |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
City Point was a town in Prince George County, Virginia, United States, that was annexed by the independent city of Hopewell in 1923. It served as headquarters of the Union Army during the siege of Petersburg during the American Civil War. [1]
City Point owed its existence to its site overlooking the James and Appomattox Rivers. City Point was established in 1613 by Sir Thomas Dale. It was first known as Bermuda Cittie, but soon was renamed "Charles City" and was located in Charles City Shire when it was formed in 1634. Charles City Shire soon became known as Charles City County in 1643. City Point was included in the portion subdivided in 1703 to form Prince George County. In 1619 Samuel Sharpe and Samuel Jordan from City Point (then named Charles City) were burgesses at the first meeting of the House of Burgesses.
City Point was unaffected by the American Revolution until the final year of the war in January 1781. At that time the British fleet, commanded by Benedict Arnold, sailed up the James in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Governor Thomas Jefferson. The returning fleet was fired upon by cannons mounted near City Point. The British later landed in the spring, April 24, 1781, at City Point and moved toward the forces under French General Lafayette stationed at Petersburg, Virginia. Those forces at Petersburg repelled the British, and they retreated down the James River.
Lord Cornwallis regrouped the British at City Point for another attack on Lafayette's forces in Petersburg. Cornwallis spent one night in the plantation house, of the Bolling Family known as Mitchell's. The home no longer exists, it burned in 1925 and was demolished. The farm where it once stood overlooking the Appomattox was later developed as a residential neighborhood known as Mansion Hills, but a photo of Mitchell's taken during the Civil War survives.
Cornwallis' stay at Mitchell's gave rise to an interesting legend. During dinner, the British officers spoke freely of their plan to cross the James and attacking Lafayette from the rear of the bivouacked troops. Young Susanna Bolling listened carefully. In the dark of night she slipped through a secret passageway escaping unseen from her home. Canoeing across the Appomattox River, she then made her way on horseback to the Half-Way House, [2] which still stands on Route 1 in Chesterfield County, where Lafayette was quartered. Forewarned, Lafayette escaped Cornwallis’ trap. The British grew tired of the chase and soon turned eastward and his forces became besieged in Yorktown by the Continental Army. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781. [3]
During the American Civil War, City Point was the headquarters of General Ulysses S. Grant during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864 and 1865. To serve the Union army, two huge military installations were built—a supply depot and the Depot Field Hospital. During that siege, City Point was one of the busiest ports in the world.
On March 27 or 28, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln met at City Point with Generals Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman along with Admiral David Porter aboard the River Queen, as depicted by G.P.A Healy's 1868 painting The Peacemakers .
The City Point Railroad, built in 1838 between City Point and Petersburg, became part of the South Side Railroad in 1854, and played an important role in the Civil War. It later became the oldest portion of the Norfolk and Western Railway, itself now a part of Norfolk Southern.
Grant's Headquarters at Appomattox Manor form part of the National Park Service's Petersburg National Battlefield Park. The adjacent City Point Historical District is a registered National Historical Landmark.
See main article Hopewell, Virginia for more information.
On August 9, 1864, a tremendous explosion shook the city. General Grant reported, "Every part of the yard used as my headquarters is filled with splinters and fragments of shell," and a staff officer wrote, "Such a rain of shot, shell, bullets, pieces of wood, iron bars and bolts, chains and missiles of every kind was never before witnessed."
Examination of the wreckage revealed that a barge loaded with ammunition had exploded, detonating 30,000 artillery shells and 75,000 rounds of small arms ammunition. 43 people were killed instantly [4] and 126 were wounded (some accounts put the death toll at 300). As an illustration, Mrs. Elmira Spencer, New York State Agent attached to the 147th NY Reg, was out conducting her rounds on horseback when she was hit by the shrapnel and wounded her causing temporary paralysis in her legs and permanent sciatic nerve damage. Unknown numbers of contraband men who were not working at the time but near the dock were never accounted for and the Post Office and Adams Express Office were blown to bits leaving mail scattered in with the debris. [5] The wharf was almost entirely destroyed, and the damage was put at $2 million.
After the war it was discovered that the massive explosion thought to be an accident had actually been an act of sabotage by the Confederates. Confederate Secret Service agent John Maxwell had smuggled a time bomb aboard the ammunition barge. Maxwell used a clockwork mechanism to ignite 12 pounds of gunpowder packed into a box marked "candles." He called it his "horological torpedo." (Horological referring to time keeping; torpedo was a term used in the Civil War a wide variety of bombs and booby traps.) Here is a portion of Maxwell's report, taken from the Official Records.
Sir:
I have the honor to report that in obedience to your order, and with the means and equipment furnished me by you, I left this city on the 26th of July last, for the line of the James River, to operate with the Horological Torpedo against the enemy’s vessels navigating that river. I had with me Mr. R. K. Dillard, who was well acquainted with the localities, and whose service I engaged for the expedition. On arriving in Isle of Wright County, on the 2nd of August, we learned of immense supplies of stores being landed at City Point, and for the purpose, by stratagem, of introducing our machine upon the vessels there discharging stores, started for that point. We reached there before daybreak on the 9th of August last, with a small amount of provisions, having traveled mostly by night and crawled upon our knees to pass the East picket line. Requesting my companion to remain behind about half a mile, I approached cautiously the wharf with my machine and powder covered by a small box.
Finding the captain had come ashore from a barge then at the wharf, I seized the occasion to hurry forward with my box. Being halted by one of the wharf sentinels, I succeeded in passing him by representing that captain had ordered me to convey the box on board. Hailing a man from the barge, I put the machine in motion and gave it in his charge. He carried it aboard. The magazine contained about twelve pounds of powder. Rejoining my companion, we retired to a safe distance to witness the effect of our effort. In about an hour the explosion occurred. Its effect was communicated to another barge beyond the one operated upon and also to a large wharf building containing their stores (enemy’s), which was totally destroyed. The scene was terrific, and the effect deafened my companion to an extent from which he has not recovered. My own person was severely shocked, but I am thankful to Providence that we have both escaped without lasting injury. We obtained and refer you to the enclosed slips from the enemy’s newspapers, which afford their testimony of the terrible effects of this blow. The enemy estimates the loss of life at 58 killed and 126 wounded, but we have reason to believe it greatly exceeded that. The pecuniary damage we heard estimated at $4,000,000 but, of course, we can give you no account of the extent of it exactly.
The explosion didn't much hinder the Union war effort. The City Point supply depot was back in full operation in nine days. Although sabotage was not yet affirmed, the ammunition supply wharf was rebuilt to a much higher degree of security.[ citation needed ]
Hopewell is an independent city surrounded by Prince George County and the Appomattox River in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 23,033. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Hopewell with Prince George County for statistical purposes.
Prince George County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 43,010. Its county seat is Prince George.
Petersburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,458 with a majority black American population. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes. The city is 21 miles (34 km) south of the commonwealth (state) capital city of Richmond.
Colonial Heights is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,170. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the City of Colonial Heights with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes.
The Appomattox River is a tributary of the James River, approximately 157 miles (253 km) long, in central and eastern Virginia, named for the Appomattocs Indian tribe who lived along its lower banks in the 17th century. It drains a cotton and tobacco-growing region of the Piedmont and coastal plain southwest of Richmond.
Appomattox Manor is a former plantation house in Hopewell, Virginia, United States. It is best known as the Union headquarters during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864–65.
The Bermuda Hundred campaign was a series of battles fought at the town of Bermuda Hundred, outside Richmond, Virginia, during May 1864 in the American Civil War. Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, commanding the Army of the James, threatened Richmond from the east but was stopped by forces under Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard.
The Battle of Green Spring took place near Green Spring Plantation in James City County, Virginia during the American Revolutionary War. On July 6, 1781 United States Brigadier General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, leading the advance forces of the Marquis de Lafayette, was ambushed near the plantation by the British army of Earl Charles Cornwallis in the last major land battle of the Virginia campaign prior to the Siege of Yorktown.
Petersburg National Battlefield is a National Park Service unit preserving sites related to the American Civil War Siege of Petersburg (1864–65). The battlefield is near the city of Petersburg, Virginia, and includes outlying components in Hopewell, Prince George County, and Dinwiddie County. Over 140,000 people visit the park annually.
In 1836, the Virginia House of Delegates approved a charter for the City Point Railroad. City Point, Virginia, was just ten years old. The Lower Appomattox Company ran boats of cargo from Petersburg, Virginia, to the large port at City Point. The company knew that the port needed a rail road to be competitive in the 1830s even though this would only be the second rail road in Virginia. Large ships that were too large for Port Walthall or Petersburg had to load and unload at City Point. Goods for export arrived in Petersburg from farms and plantations by way of the Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System. The Richmond and Petersburg Railroad bringing coal and goods to port was also chartered in 1836. Coal arriving by boat from the Clover Hill Pits in 1837 and goods would soon be taken on the Clover Hill Railroad to connect with the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad to export from the area ports.
Grant's Headquarters at City Point is a museum operated by the National Park Service at Appomattox Manor in Hopewell, Virginia. It is a unit of the Petersburg National Battlefield Park, located where Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant had his headquarters for nine-and-a-half months.
The Tri-Cities of Virginia is an area in the Greater Richmond Region which includes the three independent cities of Petersburg, Colonial Heights, and Hopewell and portions of the adjoining counties of Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, and Prince George in south-central Virginia. Other unincorporated communities located in the Tri-Cities area include Ettrick, Fort Gregg-Adams, and City Point, the latter formerly a historic incorporated town which was annexed to become part of the City of Hopewell.
The Yorktown campaign, also known as the Virginia campaign, was a series of military maneuvers and battles during the American Revolutionary War that culminated in the siege of Yorktown in October 1781. The result of the campaign was the surrender of the British Army force of General Charles Earl Cornwallis, an event that led directly to the beginning of serious peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war. The campaign was marked by disagreements, indecision, and miscommunication on the part of British leaders, and by a remarkable set of cooperative decisions, at times in violation of orders, by the French and Americans.
Bermuda Hundred was the first administrative division in the English colony of Virginia. It was founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1613, six years after Jamestown. At the southwestern edge of the confluence of the Appomattox and James Rivers opposite City Point, annexed to Hopewell, Virginia in 1923, Bermuda Hundred was a port town for many years. The terminology "Bermuda Hundred" also included a large area adjacent to the town. In the colonial era, "hundreds" were large developments of many acres, arising from the English term to define an area which would support 100 homesteads. The port at the town of Bermuda Hundred was intended to serve other "hundreds" in addition to Bermuda Hundred.
The Battle of Blandford, also called the Battle of Petersburg, took place near Petersburg, Virginia on 25 April 1781, late in the American War of Independence. Roughly 2,300 British regulars under the command of Brigadier General William Phillips defeated about 1,000 militia under Major General Baron von Steuben.
The Battle of Spencer's Ordinary was an inconclusive skirmish that took place on 26 June 1781, late in the American Revolutionary War. British forces under Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe and American forces under Colonel Richard Butler, light detachments from the armies of General Lord Cornwallis and the Marquis de Lafayette respectively, clashed near a tavern at a road intersection not far from Williamsburg, Virginia.
Charles, Earl Cornwallis (1738–1805) was a military officer who served in the British Army during the American War of Independence. He is best known for surrendering his army after the 1781 siege of Yorktown, an act that ended major hostilities in North America and led directly to peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war.
The military career of Benedict Arnold in 1781 consisted of service in the British Army. Arnold had changed sides in September 1780, after his plot was exposed to surrender the key Continental Army outpost at West Point. He spent the rest of 1780 recruiting Loyalists for a new regiment called the American Legion. Arnold was then sent to Virginia with 1,600 men in late December by General Sir Henry Clinton, with instructions to raid Richmond and then establish a strong fortification at Portsmouth.
The history of Virginia in the American Revolution begins with the role the Colony of Virginia played in early dissent against the British government and culminates with the defeat of General Cornwallis by the allied forces at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, an event that signaled the effective military end to the conflict. Numerous Virginians played key roles in the Revolution, including George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson.
Violet Bank is a historic plantation house and museum in Colonial Heights, Virginia. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
