Parker’s Battery

William Watts Parker, a Richmond physician, raised an artillery company in 1862 and gave it his name. Just weeks before the war’s end, Captain Parker was promoted to major and left the battery. After Butler’s army landed at Bermuda Hundred on May 5, 1864, this area saw continuous operations until April 3, 1865, forcing Confederate leaders to defend it with veteran troops such as Parker’s Battery. During the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in mid-June 1864, as the armies moved from Cold Harbor toward Petersburg, Grant borrowed troops from Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James to strengthen his drive on Petersburg, while the rest of his army marched from the east and attacked the city on June 15-18. General P.G.T. Beauregard, commanding Confederate troops at Bermuda Hundred, chose to abandon the peninsula and hurry to Petersburg’s aid, briefly leaving the route to Richmond open through Bermuda Hundred until Lee’s army arrived in time to restore the lines there and help defend Petersburg. Parker’s Battery was part of the force Lee assigned to Bermuda Hundred on June 17. The site preserves a view of a typical Civil War artillery company on the front lines during the war’s final year, where men relied on massive earthen fortifications and elaborately built cannon emplacements for protection, and where a small monument erected by survivors reflects the place’s importance in their postwar lives.

Virginia · United States