The Battle of Trent’s Reach

On Jan. 23, 1865, the ironclads Virginia II, Richmond, and Fredericksburg, with five smaller vessels, descended the James River in an effort to attack the Union supply depot at City Point after reports that floods had washed away the Union obstructions at Trent’s Reach and that most Union vessels had been sent to North Carolina for the attack on Fort Fisher near Wilmington. The Confederate ships slipped past Union guns at Fort Brady, but fire from the fort alerted batteries downriver, and by 10:30 P.M. the flotilla reached the obstructions at Trent’s Reach. The Fredericksburg and gunboat Hampton passed through the southern side of the barrier, but Virginia II ran aground in the channel, and during the night the torpedo boat Scorpion and the armed tender Drewry also ran aground, forcing Fredericksburg and Hampton to return upriver to protect the stranded vessels. At sunrise, Union cannon in Battery Parsons opened fire on Drewry, whose explosion on the third shot was heard by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at City Point 18 miles downriver; the blast also dislodged Scorpion and sent her drifting into Union hands. Union shore batteries then pounded Richmond and Virginia II, and by 10:45 A.M., as Virginia II floated free, the double-turreted U.S.S. Onondaga came upriver and from a half mile its 15-inch guns broke through the four inch armor of Virginia II before the ironclad could escape range. The Confederate vessels took shelter in a bend of the river opposite Battery Dantzler and the next day retired upriver to Chaffin’s Bluff, ending the threat to Grant’s supply base.

Virginia · United States