Battle of Big Bethel

Unlike at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the U.S. Army held Fort Monroe and its surroundings too strongly for Confederate forces to overcome, so the Confederates concentrated on controlling Hampton Roads and protecting Norfolk and Portsmouth. After the U.S. Navy evacuated the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth on April 20, 1861, destroying the yard and burning several ships to deny those resources to the Confederates, the U.S. Army consolidated its occupation of Fort Monroe and nearby ground by establishing Camp Hamilton west of the fort near Hampton. To threaten Union shipping in the waterway, the Confederates began constructing a battery at Sewell's Point on the present-day naval base, while the Federals continued work on Fort Calhoun on the Rip Raps and eventually mounted a gun with sufficient range to shell Sewell's Point. Civilians with secessionist sympathies who were caught within Union lines were permitted to leave, and many outside the lines but too close for comfort in Hampton and Newport News also departed. In May, Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler ordered two thousand men to Newport News, where Camp Butler was established to augment Camp Hamilton and strengthen Federal control of the northern side of Hampton Roads. Inland, Confederate Col. John B. Magruder prepared defensive works as Butler planned excursions west from Fort Monroe in preparation for bolder movements, and early in June one such excursion resulted in the Battle of Big Bethel.

Hampton, Virginia · United States