On August 22, 1861, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered a series of artillery positions built to blockade the Potomac River by commanding its sailing channel, including one at Leesylvania, also known as Freestone Point, the grounds of his ancestral home. For the next six months, military and political attention centered on this vital river passage to Washington, D.C., as prominent bluffs along the Virginia shore offered artillery sites controlling traffic across a six-mile front. The northernmost battery at Freestone Point served as a decoy while stronger batteries were constructed farther downriver at Possum Point, Cockpit Point, and Evansport. On September 25, 1861, Union gunboats of the Potomac Flotilla saw activity at Freestone Point and fired to scatter the workers, and Confederates fired back in an exchange that lasted most of the afternoon with little damage on either side. Sgt. Walter Curry of the Washington Mounted Artillery of Hampton’s Legion wrote in his diary that "...as soon as the eleventh shot was fired, our Guns opened on the Lincolnite men of war which were floating majestically on the Broad Potomac." By December, the Confederates had effectively closed the Potomac to commercial traffic, but the Federals' expected spring movement led them to withdraw to stronger defenses along the Rappahannock River, ending the blockade on March 9, 1862.