Browsing named entities in The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 1: The Opening Battles. (ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller). You can also browse the collection for Dutch Gap (Virginia, United States) or search for Dutch Gap (Virginia, United States) in all documents.

Your search returned 3 results in 2 document sections:

The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 1: The Opening Battles. (ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller), Preface 1: Photographing the Civil War (search)
came home invalided we heard of that grand picture-maker Brady, as they called him. When I made some views (with the only apparatus then known, the wet plate ), there came a large realization of some of the immense Digging under fire at Dutch Gap-1864 Here for a moment the Engineering corps of General Benjamin F. Butler's army paused while the camera of the army photographer was focussed upon it. In August, 1864, Butler, with his army then bottled up in Bermuda Hundred, began to dig a canal at Dutch Gap to save a circuit of six miles in the bend of the James River and thus avoid the batteries, torpedoes, and obstructions which the Confederates had placed to prevent the passage of the Federal fleet up the river toward Richmond. The difficulties of this engineering feat are here seen plainly in the photograph. It took Butler's men all the rest of the year (1864) to cut through this canal, exposed as they were to the fire of the Confederate batteries above. One of the last
The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 1: The Opening Battles. (ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller), Preface 4: the strategy of the Civil War (search)
ry Dantzler, known as Howlett's to the Federal forces; from thence could be seen Forts Spofford and Sawyer. A peculiar situation was developed here. The Union obstructions and batteries were intended to prevent the Confederate fleet from coming down, and the Confederate engineers had placed mines and torpedoes in Trent's Reach to hinder the Federal fleet from coming up. The various strong forts along the river were for the same purpose, and at Chaffin's Bluff, less than three miles above Dutch Gap, the neck of Farrar's Island, the Confederate flotilla had penned itself in with obstructions quite as formidable as those below. Grant's later operations farther up the James and before Petersburg rendered much of the Federal work unnecessary. Virginia was contingent upon the safety of Washington, thus causing the diversion of many thousand soldiers for that single duty. On the Southern side the correct military decision would have been to abandon Richmond as soon as Petersburg was