Drewry's Bluff: The Ironclads That Could Not Climb
Near Richmond, Virginia
Seven miles south of Richmond, the James River bends sharply beneath a ninety-foot bluff of clay and limestone. In the spring of eighteen sixty-two, that bend and that bluff were all that stood between the Union Navy and the Confederate capital.
After the fall of Norfolk in early May of sixty-two, the Confederates were forced to scuttle their ironclad CSS Virginia to prevent her capture. Her crew, suddenly without a ship, marched overland and joined the garrison atop Drewry's Bluff. The Confederates had already been building earthwork fortifications there, sinking vessels in the river channel below to block passage and mounting artillery on the heights.
On May fifteenth, eighteen sixty-two, a Union naval squadron steamed up the James to finish what the Virginia had started: reach Richmond by water. The fleet included five vessels, among them two ironclads, the Monitor and the Galena. The Monitor was the most famous warship in the world, fresh from her duel with the Virginia just two months earlier.
But the bluff defeated her. The Monitor's gun turret could not elevate high enough to hit the Confederate batteries above. The Galena, less armored than she appeared, took dozens of hits and was badly damaged. After more than three hours of fighting, the Union squadron turned back.
The Confederate garrison at Drewry's Bluff held Richmond's water approach for the remaining three years of the war. The site, which the Confederates called Fort Darling, is now part of Richmond National Battlefield Park. The earthworks still crown the bluff, and the view down the river bend that stopped the Union Navy is unchanged.
