Dutch Gap

In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale and his men, using a tactic developed in the Dutch Low Country, dug a ditch and erected a fence across the neck of the peninsula for the defense of Henricus. In 1864, Federal forces under General Benjamin Butler began construction of a canal on the ditch site to cut off approximately six miles of river travel and protect Federal gunboats from the fire of Confederate land batteries. Federal soldiers labored 144 days under constant fire. In 1865, the only remaining barrier to the completion of the canal was a large bulkhead, and on January 1 the troops ignited the gun powder buried within it. The bulkhead exploded, but the earth came back to rest in the newly dug canal, and the project was abandoned. In 1871, the U.S. Government completed the dredging of the gap and opened the canal, and the steamship was the first commercial vessel to use the canal. In 1930, the Army Corps of Engineers extended the canal to the Virginia Power plant, creating Hatcher’s Island and eliminating another large loop in the river.

Virginia · United States