During the Civil War, Suffolk held considerable strategic importance. On May 12, 1862, Colonel Charles C. Dodge’s 1st New York Mounted Rifles entered the town and began a Union occupation that lasted throughout the war after Mayor Benjamin Riddick surrendered it with assurances that peaceable citizens’ rights would be protected. Additional Federal troops from Camp Butler under Brigadier General J.K.F. Mansfield soon moved in as local Confederate forces withdrew west to the Blackwater River. In February 1863, after the Union IX Corps reinforced Fort Monroe, Robert E. Lee sent Lieutenant General James Longstreet with the divisions of John Bell Hood, George Pickett, and Samuel French into the Tidewater region to block any possible advance against Richmond via Petersburg from Suffolk, in Longstreet’s first independent command. Following an unsuccessful expedition in North Carolina, Longstreet opened operations against Major General J.J. Peck’s 15,000-man force at Suffolk on April 11, 1863. Confederate forces drove the Federals into their fortifications and began building an outer ring of earthworks around the town. Longstreet believed Suffolk could be taken within days, but he felt the Confederates could not afford the ammunition or spare the men needed to hold it. In the following weeks, Peck’s force grew to 29,000 men, and Federal gunboats prevented any Confederate advance across the Nansemond River. The siege became a series of skirmishes, highlighted by the Union capture of Fort Huger on the Western Branch of the Nansemond River. Longstreet ended the siege on May 4, 1863, to help Lee respond to Major General Joseph Hooker’s move toward Richmond. Although Union control of Suffolk remained intact, the operation was considered a Confederate success because it yielded valuable supplies from the surrounding countryside and helped contain any Federal Southside advance against Richmond.

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Photo: Anonymous

Photo: Anonymous

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Suffolk, Virginia · USA