Browsing named entities in Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler. You can also browse the collection for Jamestown Island (Virginia, United States) or search for Jamestown Island (Virginia, United States) in all documents.

Your search returned 1 result in 1 document section:

Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler, Chapter 5: Baltimore and Fortress Monroe. (search)
st speed, to the great delight of its people. And in honor of that occasion that point was named Newport's News. I saw that this point, if held by us and fortified, would forever keep safe the deep channel and anchorage whereon to concentrate a fleet and make an attack upon Norfolk, which lay at the left from the bluff facing the fort and some seven miles up the Elizabeth. I also saw that this post, as long as it was held, would control the ascent of James River certainly as far as Jamestown Island, or some twenty-five miles toward Richmond. Three days after my arrival at the fort I determined to occupy Newport News. I did not wish to waste time, and as it was distant more than the half day's march to which I was restricted by my orders, I wrote to General Scott that I proposed to make the reconnoissance in person that very day, with the intention, if I found it practical, of seizing Newport News, and intrenching a force there by which this important point could always be held u