On 25 April 1781, this part of the community of Pocahontas served as the rear guard staging area for American Major General Frederick von Steuben’s Virginia militia during their defense of Petersburg against the invading British army under Major General William Phillips. During the evening and night before the battle, troops of Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg’s Corps encamped in Pocahontas and on the Heights, now Colonial Heights, above the community to protect the army from any possible British surprise attack, and the encampment also received and assembled additional militia being called up for the emergency. On the morning of the battle, von Steuben moved his army to positions on the eastern edges of Petersburg and Blandford and deployed elements of the Chesterfield County militia under Colonel Robert Goode and two companies of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Caul’s Virginia cavalry, including one commanded by Captain Robert Bolling IV of Petersburg, along the north side of the Appomattox River downstream to Bermuda Hundred to protect the American rear and the army’s single avenue of retreat across the Pocahontas Bridge. When the Americans retreated from their forward position in Petersburg, the units there provided covering fire as four regiments crossed the bridge into Chesterfield County and safety. During this retreat, the Virginians suffered their heaviest casualties of the battle, especially as British artillery fired on them while they climbed the steep terrain onto the Heights. At the time of the Revolutionary War, the Appomattox River Diversion Channel on the west and north sides of Pocahontas had not been cut, and the marsh on the west side could be forded and traversed. Pocahontas was also important for its warehouses and docks, which supported Petersburg’s large harbor and tobacco economy and maintained military stores for the American Continental Army, while the narrow wooden Pocahontas Bridge was a significant route for Continental Army troops and supplies during the war.