The Peninsula Campaign Part 8- A Civil War Traveler Goes to Jamestown?

**The Visitor Center National Park Service- 37.2115964, -76.7769784**

**The Visitor Center Museum has no displays on the Civil War**

**The footbridge to the Jamestown National Historic Site and Jamestowne Rediscovered**

**The entry to Jamestowne Rediscovered which is where the remnants of Fort Pocahontas the Civil War Fort are located. This requires an additional admission fee.**

The Memorial Church was built in 1907 stands on the foundation of three previous churches built in the 1600s. On the right in front of the church is the Church Tower the only above ground 17th-century structure on the island.

**Pocahontas Statue after which the Confederate Civil War fort was named**

The James River in the area of the wharf

**John Smith Statue to the right you can see the Church Tower**

The 1861 Fort Pocahontas- the small brown Confederate earthworks sign appears to have been replaced by the sign below which is present at both ends of the fort, The small brown sign is not present at the location listed in the Historical Marker Database.

From the sign- The embankment and earth mounds before you are the remnants of a Confederate Civil War earthwork named Fort Pocahontas. One of five Civil War forts constructed on Jamestown Island, this shore battery of 18 guns was positioned to stop Federal ships from moving upriver toward Richmond, the capital and industrial center of the Confederacy. Jamestown landowner William Allen and his slaves began construction of the earthworks in the spring of 1861 and Confederate naval engineer Lt. Catesby Roger Jones completed them. General Robert E. Lee personally inspected Fort Pocahontas on June 5, 1861. Confederate forces designed and tested armored targets with Fort Pocahontas’ guns, the results of which were put to test in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the famous clash of the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimac). The fort was abandoned without a fight on May 3, 1862, and the troops retreated to a position nearer to Richmond after burning the powder magazines and gun carriages. Under Federal control, Jamestown Island was used as a camp for escaped slaves. Archaeologists have discovered the fort’s timber plank gun emplacements, moats, ramps, powder magazines, and bomb-proofs.

Robert Knox Sneden’s painting of the shoreline of Jamestown and Fort Pocahontas. Sneden drew mountains in the background which is confusing. Sneden was a topographical engineer on General Samuel P. Heintzelman’s staff. He participated in the Peninsula campaign and Seven Days from Fort Monroe to Harrison’s Landing. He knew there were no mountains on the York and James River peninsula.