Redoubt 1

By late June 1861, because Lt. Col. Benjamin S. Ewell had made little progress on the Williamsburg defenses, Gen. John B. Magruder replaced him with Gen. Lafayette McLaws. Capt. Alfred L. Rives, acting chief of the Engineer Bureau in Richmond and an 1848 graduate of Virginia Military Institute, opposed Ewell’s plan for a defense based on interlocking redoubts linked by rifle pits and later argued that once one redoubt was taken, confidence in the whole line collapsed. He also objected that Ewell’s proposed line running north from College Creek through Williamsburg would have required leveling part of the town to clear fields of fire, and he instead suggested a line east of town that took better advantage of the terrain, although Ewell believed it was too long and would require too many men. Magruder agreed with Rives’s location and ordered McLaws to begin work on July 9, 1861. Soldiers and impressed slaves built the line from Redoubt 1 for four miles across the Peninsula to Redoubt 14 at Cub Run Creek, with redoubts spaced 600 to 800 yards apart and Fort Magruder, Redoubt 6, the largest in the center guarding the Williamsburg Road. Cleared fields of fire, rifle pits, and abatis stood in front of each redoubt. Redoubt 1, one of the largest fortifications, mounted three artillery pieces behind a mile-long ravine overlooking Tutter’s Mill Pond, a tributary of College Creek, and Quarterpath Road. The line remained unfinished when Federal forces began marching up the Peninsula on April 4, 1862.

Williamsburg, Virginia · United States