Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[502] once established; and in the course of a few days a battery was planted at Newport-Newce that commanded the ship-channel of the James River and the mouth of the Nansemond, on one side of which, on Pig Point, the insurgents had constructed a strong redoubt, and armed it well with cannon from the Gosport Navy Yard. It was a part of Butler's plan of campaign to

Newport-Newce landing.

capture or turn that redoubt, pass up the Nansemond, and seize Suffolk; and, taking possession of the railway connections between that town and Petersburg and Norfolk, menace the Weldon Road — the great highway between Virginia and the Carolinas. To do this required more troops and munitions of war, and especially of means for transportation, than General Butler had then at his command; and he was enabled only to take possession of and hold the important strategic point of Newport-Newce at that time. In order to ascertain the strength of the Pig Point Battery, he sent Captain John Faunce, with the United States armed steamer Harriet Lane, to attack it.

June 5, 1861.

The water was so shallow that Faunce was compelled to open fire at the distance of eighteen hundred yards. In the course of forty-five minutes he threw thirty shot and shell at the redoubt, most of which fell short. With guns of longer range, and more effective, the commander of the battery returned the fire. The Harriet Lane was struck twice, and five of her men were wounded. Satisfied that the battery was a dangerous one, her commander withdrew.¹

On the day after Colonel Phelps's departure, Colonel Abraham Duryee, commander of a well-disciplined regiment of Zouaves, composing the Fifth New York Volunteers, arrived at Fortress Monroe, and was at once assigned to the command of Camp Hamilton, as acting brigadier-general. His regiment had preceded him a few days. He at once issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of that portion of Virginia, friendly in tone, and assuring them that the rights and property of all peaceable citizens should be respected. The troops in his charge consisted of the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Tenth, and Twentieth New York Volunteers, and the Pennsylvania Seventy-first, known as the California Regiment, under Colonel Baker, a member of the United States Senate.² Duryee was succeeded a few days afterward by Brigadier-General E. W. Peirce, of Massachusetts, Butler's senior in rank in the militia of that State, who had generously yielded his claims to higher position for the sake of his country. He was a brave and