Updated:
05/09/2008
Photo Credits: Massachusetts Commandey Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the US Army Military History Institute
Water Battery
In June 1861, the Army of the Confederate States of America fortified Gloucester Point by constructing a star shaped fort and water battery overlooking the York River. The main battery was at the extremity of the point, its terreplain only two feet above high tide. It was a fully enclosed earthwork, 100 yards long and 75 yards wide.
Its parapet was 7.5 feet high on the inside and 20 feet thick, with embrasures for 12 guns. While the battery was under construction Gloucester Point came under fire from Union armed steamers. The attack was repelled and the battery was completed at the instruction of General Robert E. Lee. More than a dozen large canons were mounted: (4) bearing down river, (4) across to Yorktown, and (4) up river. Its armament consisted of eight 9-inch naval rifles and four rifled 32 pounders.
This battery was protected by the star shaped fort constructed on the bluff overlooking the water battery. During the peninsula campaign, General J. B. Magruder relied upon the cannon at the Point to defend the terminus of his line of fortifications across the James-York Peninsula. The Gloucester Point Battery was abandoned in May 1862 as Union General George McClellan's army swept up the York River to West Point.
Credits: VA Research Center for Archeology, Williamsburg; Historian: Martha McCartney
