After the initial seven states seceded from the Union they began to seize Federal forts, arsenals and property within their borders. Only four major forts in these states would remain in Union hands for the duration of the war. Three of these were in Florida: Fort Pickens in Pensacola Beach; Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West; and Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. The fourth was Fort Monroe on Old Point Comfort at the tip of the Virginia peninsula and the mouth of the James River, only 80 miles from Richmond. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott viewed Fort Monroe as the key to the South. It could act as a staging area not only to launch an invasion up the peninsula to Richmond but also as a deep-water port to support the operations of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron down the Southern coast. In addition, it could easily be resupplied from Chesapeake Bay. Recently promoted Major General Benjamin Butler was reassigned to command Fort Monroe and the newly formed Department of Virginia. Butler remained a controversial figure wherever he was sent throughout the war and his time at Fort Monroe was no exception.
He arrived on May 18th and five days later three slaves escaped across rebel lines to Fort Monroe (Shepard Mallory, Frank Baker and James Townsend). The following day a Confederate Major, John Baytop Cary, under a flag of truce, requested their return as per the fugitive slave law. Cary stated ” I am informed that three Negroes belonging to Colonel Mallory have escaped within your lines. I am Colonel Mallory’s agent and have charge of his property. What do you mean to do with those Negroes?” Butler replied, “I intend to hold them.” “Do you mean then to set aside your constitutional obligation to return them?” Cary asked. To which Butler responded “I mean to take Virginia at her word. I am under no constitutional obligation to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be.” “But you say we cannot secede and so you cannot consistently detain the Negroes.” Cary said. Butler retorted “But you say you have seceded, so you cannot consistently claim them. I shall hold these Negroes as contraband of war, since they are engaged in the construction of your battery and are claimed as your property.” Butler’s “contraband of war” argument justified keeping slaves that had crossed to freedom while simultaneously injuring the Confederate war effort. Word of mouth traveled quickly and within a month over 500 addition slaves escaped to the protection of Fort Monroe. Passage of the Confiscation Act in June of 1861 legalized the process.
General Butler established Camp Hampton under the protection of the guns of Fort Monroe. On May 27th he sent troops to occupy Newport News Point where he set up the entrenched Camp Butler causing the Confederates to abandon Hampton. General Robert E. Lee then the commander of the Provisional Army of Virginia on May 21st detailed Colonel John Bankhead Magruder to assume command of the line to Hampton. Lee realized the threat to Richmond that Butler’s expanding forces posed and began to reinforce Magruder. He sent Daniel Harvey Hill’s 1st NC, several companies of the 3rd VA under Colonel William D. Stuart, and Montague’s Battalion to the peninsula. By early June Magruder had over 3,400 troops including artillery commanded by George Wythe Randolph and three companies of cavalry under Major John Bell Hood. Magruder chose to block the path up to the peninsula to Richmond where the Hampton-York Highway crossed the northwest branch of the Back River (black Kiln Creek) over a flat wooden bridge at Big Bethel Church eight miles from Hampton.
On June 6th Magruder sent 3 companies of Montague’s Battalion to Big Bethel. D.H. Hill arrived the next day and began to build entrenchments on June 7th. On the 8th Randolph’s artillery and 4 companies of the 15th VA under Stuart reported. Hill sent cavalry forward to Little Bethel about 3 miles closer to Hampton. Hill’s men constructed a redoubt on a hill on the southern side of the river along the Confederate’s right flank. On the north side of the river fortifications were constructed that encircled the road with three cannons inside. Skirmishing took place between Little Bethel and south to the Newmarket Creek Bridge. This sudden aggressive activity made Butler determined to drive the rebels out of the area.
Major Theodore Winthrop, a Yale graduate, devised a very complex plan of attack that involved two columns marching from different directions at night. The columns would then join up prior to Little Bethel and then march on Big Bethel. This was a common problem early in the war where complex military maneuvers were designed that were beyond the capabilities of their “green” soldiers and “green” leaders to execute under the strain of combat.
The red arrow in the image above illustrates the column that marched from Fort Hamilton. At 9:30 PM Judson Kilpatrick leading the advance guard of Colonel Abram Duryee’s 5th NY left Segar’s Farm and crossed the Hampton River at 10:00 PM. At midnight the rest of Duryee’s regiment headed for the Newmarket Creek Bridge. They were followed an hour later by Colonel Frederick Townsend’s 3rd NY. Further behind was the reserve made up of the 1st and 2nd NY. From Camp Butler (blue arrow) Lieutenant Colonel Peter T. Washburn’s New England Battalion (1st VT, 4th MA) started out and were followed by Colonel John E. Bendix’s 7th NY and John Trout Greble’s 2nd US Artillery. All were under the direction of Brigadier General Ebenezer Weaver Peirce. Butler remained at Fort Monroe. In order to allow the soldiers to recognize each other when they joined up near Little Bethel, they wore white armbands and were given a secret password “Boston”. The problem was that no one told John E. Bendix’s 7th NY about the “secret password”. As a result, when the columns approached one another just south of Little Bethel the 7th NY began to fire on the 3rd NY; the first episode of casualties (total of 18) caused by friendly fire in the Civil War.
The element of surprise now gone General Peirce decided to continue on with the attack anyway after burning the chapel at Little Bethel. Magruder had sent D.H. Hill marching toward Little Bethel when at 3:00 AM Hannah Tunnel, a woman who lived along the road the Yankees were traveling, informed Magruder that Union troops were marching his way. The Rebels retreated back to their earthworks at Big Bethel. Link to the map below from the Library of Congress.
Union troops attacked in an uncoordinated piecemeal fashion. The 5th NY attacked the Confederate right and lost two privates George Tiebout and James Griggs. A third Private James Taylor was killed by friendly fire. Judson Kilpatrick was wounded in the right hip. The 5th and 7th NY attacked the Confederate right flank and were repulsed when the 3rd NY failed to support them. A group of 5th NY sharpshooters were using a house across the river from the Confederate right. Five volunteers attempted to burn the house down and, in the process, Private Henry Lawson Wyatt was shot in the head and killed. The 1st VT and 4th MA attacked the Confederate left and were repulsed by the North Carolinians. Major Winthrop attempted to lead one final charge. He stood on a log waving his sword shouting “Come on boys; one more charge and the day is ours.” He was shot in the heart and fell to the ground dead. As Lieutenant John Trout Greble, a Union artillery officer, was covering the Federal withdrawal a large shell fragment tore off part of his skull and he was mortally wounded. Lieutenant Greble was the first regular army officer and West Point graduate killed during the war. Another map of the battlefield is shown below.
Big Bethel was a failure for the Union and the newspapers of the day harshly criticized the military. When Gouverneur Warren testified before the Congressional Commitee on the Conduct of the War he noted: that the maps were all wrong; the complicated night attack was carried out with new troops many of which had never loaded or fired a gun; that to proceed from two different points six or seven miles apart was a poor plan and leadership was abysmal. Butler needed a scapegoat, and that man was Ebenezer Peirce. Peirce was labeled incompetent and mustered out of the Army after his 90-day enlistment period expired.
New Haven CT
The battle is summarized in the metal marker below.
There are 10 civil war trails markers at the site. They are summarized below.
#1- Protecting the Peninsula– Big Bethel was the site of the first land battle in present-day Virginia. After the Union landed troops and occupied Fort Monroe the Confederates countered by moving 1404 men under Colonel John Bankhead Magruder from Yorktown to Big Bethel Church which now lies under the reservoir, which was then a marshy creek. They built earthworks, only one of which survives. Magruder’s force consisted of the 1st NC Infantry under Colonel Daniel Harvey Hill, the 3rd VA commanded by Colonel William D. Stuart, Major George Randolph’s howitzer company and Major Edwin D. Montague’s Virginia Battalion. General Benjamin Butler organized a complicated scheme to try and dislodge the Confederates from their position involving two separate columns starting 6-7 miles apart converging on a single point. During the night of June 9th disaster resulted when these columns began firing on each other in the dark because one of them was not given the secret identifying password.
#2- Hampton Roads in 1861– Since the Union Army could not be dislodged from Fort Monroe, the Confederates instead focused on protecting Norfolk and Portsmouth. The U.S. Navy evacuated the Gosport Navy Yard on April 20, 1861, burning several ships and destroying the yard. Union forces consolidated their hold on Fort Monroe establishing Camp Hamilton west of the fort near Hampton. To threaten Union shipping in Hampton Roads the Confederates constructed a battery at Sewell’s Point on the grounds of the present-day naval base in Norfolk. The Union continued work on Fort Wool where they mounted a gun that could reach Sewell’s Point.
#3- Commanding Officers– Confederate Colonel John Bankhead Magruder graduated from West Point in 1830. He served in the Second Seminole and Mexican-American Wars. When the war began he was commanding an artillery battery in Washington, D.C.. After resigning his commission, he was appointed a Colonel in the Confederate Army and assigned to protect the peninsula. Given much of the credit for the victory at Big Bethel he disappointed General Robert E. Lee at Malvern Hill and was reassigned to Texas where he was victorious in the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1963. After the war he fled to Mexico and served in the army of Emperor Maximillian I. He returned to the U.S. and settled in Houston where he died. Union General Benjamin Butler was a Massachusetts politician and lawyer. He secured the vital rail link between Annapolis and Washington, D.C. and occupied Baltimore in May 1861. He gained national notoriety for refusing to return escaped slaves and was an advocate for black troops serving in the Army. He led a successful expedition to Cape Hatteras, was a controversial military governor of Louisiana, and failed badly at Bermuda Hundred and the first Battle of Fort Fisher. After the war he served as governor of Massachusetts and several terms in Congress.
#4- First Steps to Freedom– General Benjamin Butler assumed command of Fort Monroe on the morning of May 18, 1861. Shortly thereafter three slaves of Confederate Colonel Charles Mallory came to the fort. Butler interviewed them the next day and learned that they had been working on entrenchments at Sewell’s Point. On the 25th he met with Confederate Major John B. Cary and confiscated the slaves. Butler established a Slab-Town camp in present-day Phoebus, 7 miles to the southeast. After Hampton was burned in August a larger Slabtown was established there.
View of the Big Bethel Reservoir from Bethel Park
#5- Changing Landscape– This small park is the only publicly-accessible part of the battlefield that remains today. In the 1890s the U.S. Army flooded Brick Kiln Creek in order to provide drinking water for Fort Monroe. As a result, many key parts of the battlefield including the church site and most of the Confederate fortifications are now below the surface of the Big Bethel Reservoir. Most of the remaining portion is on Langley Air Force Base. Housing covers the location where Major Theodore Winthrop made the final Union assault. A store now occupies the site where Lieutenant John Greble was killed.
#6- The Federal Attack– The Union began their assault around 9:00 AM. Captain Judson Kilpatrick led the first attack with the 5th NY. Colonel Abram Duryee led his 5th NY and the 7th NY in the second assault which also failed. Union sharpshooters were deployed in a house and blacksmith shop in front of the Confederate right. Colonel Daniel Hill ordered these buildings burned. In the process Confederate Private Henry Wyatt of Company B, 1st NC, was mortally wounded. It is thought that Judson Kilpatrick fired the shot that killed Wyatt.
#8- Confederate Victory– The New England Battalion (1st VT, 4th MA, and 7th NY) found a ford in the Back River and attacked the Confederate left. Major Theodore Winthrop, General Butler’s military secretary, led the 7th NY forward but fire from the 1st NC forced them to retreat. Winthrop rallied his troops for another assault but was mortally wounded in the process. Colonel Daniel Hill wrote that Winthrop “was the only one of the enemy who exhibited even an approximation of courage that day”. The New Yorkers fled the field after Winthrop died. While manning his guns covering the Union retreat, Lieutenant John Greble of the 2nd U.S. Artillery was struck by a shell fragment and killed. He was the first Regular Army officer and West Point graduate killed in the war.
#9- Aftermath– The Big Bethel expedition was a total failure for the Union with 18 soldiers killed, 53 wounded and 5 missing. The Northern press criticized General Butler for lack of preparation of the troops and the fact that he remained at Fort Monroe during the battle. General Ebenezer W. Pierce received most of the blame for the defeat for failing to coordinate the attacks. Federal officers Theodore Winthrop and John Greble were killed. Southern casualties were 1 killed (Private Henry L. Wyatt), 7 wounded and 3 missing. Colonel Daniel Harvey Hill from North Carolina directed most of the action on the field but Colonel John Bankhead Magruder received most of the credit and was promoted to Brigadier General a week later.
#10- Long-Term Consequences– On June 15th a large Sawyer rifled cannon at Fort Wool opened fire on the Confederate battery at Sewell’s Point. The shelling was aided by observations from the hot air balloon Atlantic by John La Mountain. Colonel John Magruder ordered Hampton evacuated and burned on August 7th after he learned of Butler’s intention to occupy the town and turn it into a camp for runaway slaves. Butler did settle former slaves there in “Slabtown”.
Monuments to the Battle
Battle of Big Bethel Union Monument
Source
Big Bethel, The First Battle by John V. Quarstein Civil War Sesquicentennial Series
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