Howlett Line Park

Following the Battle of Ware Bottom Church on May 20, 1864, Confederate forces began digging the earthworks known as the Howlett Line, named for the Howlett house at its northernmost point. The line stretched across the Bermuda Hundred peninsula from the James River to the Appomattox River and effectively bottled up the 30,000-man Army of the James under Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. Confederates at this location exchanged fire with Union forts Dutton, McConihe, Anderson, and Pruyn until the position was abandoned after the fall of Petersburg in April 1865. On June 2, 1864, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard sent troops toward nearby Federal positions to reconnoiter their strength, and from near this spot Col. Olin M. Dantzler led the 22nd South Carolina Regiment in an attempt to capture Fort Dutton. Using the ravine to the south as cover, his men moved to within 150 yards of the fort, but as they emerged they were met with canister from the guns of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. Dantzler and 16 of his men were killed in the failed assault. Beauregard then ordered the fort on the James River near the Howlett house to be named in Dantzler’s honor. Fort Dutton, located approximately 4,000 feet northeast, was named for Col. Arthur H. Dutton, who was mortally wounded on May 26, 1864, while leading a reconnaissance of the Confederate lines and died of his wounds on June 5; the fort stood until the 1990s, when it was leveled for home construction.

Virginia · United States