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Browsing named entities in Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing). You can also browse the collection for Dutch Gap Canal (United States) or search for Dutch Gap Canal (United States) in all documents.
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Dutch Gap Canal.
There is a sharp bend in the James River between the Appomattox and Richmond, where the stream, after flowing several miles, approaches itself within 500 yards. To flank Confederate works and to shorten the passage of the river 6 or 7 miles, General Butler set a large force of colored troops at work, in the summer of 1864, in cutting a canal for the passage of vessels across this peninsula.
This canal was completed, with the exception of blowing out the bulkhead, at the close of December, 1864.
It was 500 yards in length, 60 feet in width at top, and 65 below the surface of the bluff.
It was excavated 15 feet below high-water mark.
On New Year's Day, 1865, a mine of 12,000 lbs. of gunpowder was exploded under the bulkhead, and the water rushed through, but not in sufficient depth for practical purposes, for the mass of the bulkhead (left to keep out the water) fell back into the opening after the explosion.
The canal was then swept by Confederate cannon, an