Skiffes Creek

Confederate forces built five earthworks to defend the Mulberry Island and James River flank of Major General John Bankhead Magruder’s 2nd Peninsula Defensive Line, stretching from Lee’s Mill on the Warwick River to Skiffes Creek to block any Federal flanking movement by way of Mulberry Island or Skiffes Creek. Before the emergence of the ironclad ram CSS Virginia (Merrimack), Magruder worried that his small force could not effectively fortify the James River flank, writing General Robert E. Lee in early 1862 that he could only hope Yorktown and Mulberry Island would be made impregnable or else the Peninsula and perhaps Virginia would be overrun. The fortifications across Mulberry Island, a peninsula bounded by the James River, the Warwick River, and Skiffes Creek, reflected Magruder’s extensive effort to defend this invasion route to Richmond. Though plagued by a lack of troops and artillery, his men, supported by as many as 600 to 1,000 slaves a day, built extensive defenses including entrenchments at Land’s End and Brick House Creek, batteries at Mulberry Island Point, redoubts near Skiffes Creek, and Fort Crawford, the largest earthwork in the 2nd Defensive Line, covering 8 acres with inner walls almost 20 feet high and armed with 8 heavy cannon. Magruder believed the Mulberry Island fortifications could withstand a month-long siege, but they did not play a major role in the Warwick River–Yorktown Siege because CSS Virginia (Merrimack) blocked Union use of the James River, and the Mulberry Island and Skiffes Creek works were abandoned on May 3, 1862, as the Confederate army retreated toward Richmond.

Newport News, Virginia · United States