The Bermuda Hundred Campaign

In 1865, a photograph taken near this location showed the Dutch Gap Canal with a dredge boat in the background. The canal had been dug in an attempt to bypass Confederate gun positions at Battery Dantzler about one mile to the right. Work began in August 1864 and ended in December of that year, but changes in the Federal and Confederate lines north of the river in September 1864 gave the canal little strategic value, and it was not fully completed until after the war. In the 1930's, the canal's left bank was widened to create the modern river channel, and the low area behind the dredge in the photograph is now a golf course.

Virginia · United States