Battle of Dam No. 1

Dam No. 1 was one of three dams built by Confederate commander John Bankhead Magruder to turn the sluggish Warwick River into a defensive barrier, midway between the prewar tide mills at Lee’s Mill and Wynne’s Mill. On April 5, 1862, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Union army found its advance toward Richmond blocked by Confederate fortifications at Lee’s Mill, and as he examined the Warwick-Yorktown line, Magruder used his small force so skillfully that McClellan, though outnumbering the Confederates almost ten to one, chose to besiege the Southern defenses. Southern troops expected an attack, but it did not come until April 16, 1862, when McClellan ordered Brig. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, USA, to disrupt Confederate control of Dam No. 1. That morning Union artillery, including Mott’s 3rd New York Battery, shelled the Confederate earthworks, and by noon the position seemed abandoned; at 3:00 p.m. Smith sent 200 men of the 3rd Vermont forward as skirmishers. They crossed the river, seized the first line of rifle pits held by the 15th North Carolina, and then were driven back by a fierce counterattack from Cobb’s Georgia Legion because their ammunition was wet and no reinforcements arrived. As the Vermonters recrossed the river under intense fire, a second effort to take Dam No. 1 also failed because the Confederates had reinforced the position. The fighting caused 165 Federal and 145 Confederate casualties, and the Battle of Dam No. 1, also called the Battle of Burnt Chimneys, became a missed Union opportunity to break the Warwick River defenses. Two Federal soldiers, Capt. Samuel E. Pingree and musician Julian Scott, received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the short, vicious engagement.

Newport News, Virginia · United States