A Fight on the Potomac

A Fight on the Potomac took place here on September 25, 1861. According to Confederate Sgt. Wilmot Walter Curry, his unit had been ordered to construct a battery at Freestone Point to deflect attention from larger, more permanent batteries downriver. In his diary entry for September 20, 1861, Curry wrote that a detachment from the Washington Mounted Artillery was sent to Freestone Point to erect a battery containing two rifled six-pounders from his battery and an eleven-foot-long thirty-pounder known as "Long Tom," captured at Manassas plains. On September 25, 1861, Curry recounted that at about 10 o’clock in the morning, the enemy opened fire on the battery, firing ten guns before the battery answered. Several shot and shell struck the battery but caused no damage, and after the eleventh shot the guns opened on the "Lincolnite men of war" floating on the Potomac. No one on Curry’s side was hurt, although there were some narrow escapes.

Virginia · United States