It was just fate that placed the Chesapeake Bay in the heart of the Civil War. Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Southern Confederate States, was just a few miles upstream on the James River, a major tributary feeding the Chesapeake.

The northern capital, Washington, DC, was just 100 miles to the north of Richmond, also on a major Chesapeake tributary, the Potomac River. The short distance between these two cities kept huge armies roaming over the states of Virginia and Maryland for the duration of the bloodiest of all wars fought by Americans, the Civil War, 1861 – 1865.

Both cities depended on the Bay to receive and ship goods, transport troops quickly and as a means of making aggressive strikes into enemy territory.

The Potomac River was the boundary line between the southern Virginia and the northern Washington, DC and Maryland. Control of the Potomac was the first step in obtaining control of the Chesapeake. Early in the war, a northern flotilla was assembled comprised of a handful of reconditioned steamships, barges and side-wheeled ferries, all outfitted with cannon. The Potomac Flotilla was assigned the task of patrolling the river and the Bay and was responsible for the safety for travel and supplies to and from Washington and the upper Chesapeake. It was a dangerous and bloody task lasting as long as the war.

Toward the end of the war, as Grant moved through Virginia in his overland campaign, the Flotilla moved along side his army southward on the Bay. It removed Confederate mines from the Rappahannock River, allowing the Union army to capture Fredericksburg, an important supply base. In addition, the Flotilla was able to extract gunpowder from the mines there for Union troops.

Battle of the Iron Ships

In March 1862, the Chesapeake was the setting for one of the most important sea battles in naval history. Two ungainly, ironclad war machines, the CSS Virginia (the Merrimac) and the USS Monitor (pictured above) fought to an exhausting and brutal standstill in the waters off Hampton Roads, Virginia. The boats' iron hulls, impervious to all attacks, had ushered in a new era in naval engineering.

While the battle of the two homely goliaths was a draw, the Monitor prevented the Virginia from entering Hampton Roads where she could have destroyed the Union fleet stationed there.

The Monitor sank in rough seas off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina later the same year. Neither iron ship was terribly seaworthy. But, news of their battle spread quickly around the world. According to Winston Churchill, it fostered the greatest change to naval warfare since the first cannon was mounted on a ship.

The Chesapeake Bay was the main supply route for men, machines and provisions throughout the Civil War. By 1864, the Union Flotilla had helped to drive the Confederate Navy almost completely out of the Bay. It was the beginning of the end for the bloodiest war Americans ever fought. From 1861 to 1865, brother fighting brother, 625,000 men and boys died.

For more articles about the Chesapeake by this author, see:  Chesapeake Shipwrecks,  Chesapeake Waters,  Chesapeake Geology,  Chesapeake Pollution,  and Bay Wildlife:  The Loon,  Bottlenose Dolphin,  Bufflehead,  Sea Nettle,  Barnacle,  Blue Crab, 

© 2010 Consumer Guide by David Sullivan