USCTs At Dutch Gap

Early in 1864, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered advances throughout the Confederacy, and on May 5, Gen. Benjamin F. Butler landed the Army of the James on Bermuda Hundred to operate against Richmond, Petersburg, and Confederate supply lines. Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard countered these moves and by June 1864 had effectively bottled up Butler’s army behind fortifications across the Bermuda Hundred peninsula for the rest of the war. In August 1864, Butler ordered a ditch or canal dug across the narrow neck of land at Dutch Gap so Union gunboats could evade Confederate batteries on the James River. Under brutal conditions and occasional Confederate sniper and artillery fire, Union soldiers, mostly United States Colored Troops, completed the canal on December 31, 1864, except for a slender bulkhead between the ditch and the river. On January 1, 1865, 12,000 pounds of powder were exploded to demolish the bulkhead, but the blast threw much of the earth into the canal and collapsed part of its walls, and the canal was not completed until April, too late to achieve Butler’s objective. Butler commanded more African American soldiers than any other general and advocated their use in combat as well as labor and guard duty. In May 1864, his USCT regiments seized strategic points on the James River at Wilson’s Wharf, Fort Powhatan, and City Point. USCTs were among the troops assaulting the Petersburg defenses on June 9 and June 15, took part in the Battle of the Crater on July 20, spearheaded a successful attack at New Market Heights on September 29, joined the assault on Fort Harrison, and were among the first troops to enter Richmond on April 3, 1865. Fourteen black soldiers and two white officers received the Medal of Honor for their actions at New Market Heights and Fort Harrison. Lt. Walter Thorn of Company G, 116th USCT, received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Dutch Gap on January 1, 1865, when he learned that the picket guard had not been withdrawn, mounted the bulkhead, and at great personal peril warned the guard of danger.

Virginia · United States