The Battle of Drewry's Bluff, also known as the Battle of Fort Darling, or Fort Drewry, took place on May 15, 1862, in Chesterfield County, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. Four Union Navy warships, including the ironclads USS Monitor and Galena, and the United States Revenue Cutter Service's ironclad USRC Naugatuck steamed up the James River to test the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. They encountered submerged obstacles, and deadly accurate fire from the batteries of Fort Darling at Drewry's Bluff, which inflicted severe damage on Galena, forcing them to turn back.
Battle of Drewry's Bluff
Confederate gun at Battery Dantzler, Drewry's Bluff.
Cpl John F. Mackie firing from the USS Galena
Drewry's Bluff, August 2016.
The Peninsula campaign of the American Civil War was a major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia from March to July 1862, the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. The operation, commanded by Major General George B. McClellan, was an amphibious turning movement against the Confederate States Army in Northern Virginia, intended to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. McClellan was initially successful against the equally cautious General Joseph E. Johnston, but the emergence of the more aggressive General Robert E. Lee turned the subsequent Seven Days Battles into a humiliating Union defeat.
George B. McClellan and Joseph E. Johnston, respective commanders of the Union and Confederate armies in the Peninsula campaign
Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman
Brig. Gen. Erasmus D. Keyes
Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill