Yorktown Waterfront

In spring 1862, Confederate heavy artillery batteries on the bluffs at Yorktown and along the waterfront on both sides of the York River effectively blocked U.S. Navy attempts to bypass Magruder’s 2nd Peninsula Defensive Line. The waterfront fortifications were built by Maj. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder’s Army of the Peninsula and Confederate naval personnel, and the earthworks on Yorktown’s inland perimeter were mostly constructed atop the British defenses from the 1781 siege. On the night of May 3-4, 1862, the Confederate army abandoned the 2nd Defensive Line because Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, CSA, believed the positions could not withstand Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s, USA, elaborately prepared bombardment with heavy siege guns. The Confederate army was prevented from evacuating its heavy equipment and artillery by way of the York River because McClellan’s Siege Battery Number 1, with 100- and 200-pound Parrott siege cannon, had already bombarded the waterfront. The evacuation quickly turned Yorktown into a busy port supporting the Union advance on Richmond, as members of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery retrieved ordnance from siege batteries around the town and troops assembled there for transport upriver to the Federal base at White House on the Pamunkey River, a tributary of the York River. As the Peninsula Campaign continued, casualties from battles around Richmond were transported to Yorktown, which became a major hospital area. After the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, Yorktown became a Union garrison and headquarters for a federally held district that also included Williamsburg and Gloucester Point, and its waterfront remained an active port for Union forces until the summer of 1864, when the Union army established a supply base at City Point on the James River during the Petersburg Campaign.

Yorktown, Virginia · United States