May, 1861. |
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head of the three hundred,” when General Butler arrived and took the chief command, with troops sufficient to insure its safety against the attacks of any force at the disposal of the conspirators.
General Butler's first care was, after making Fortress Monroe secure from capture, to ascertain the condition of affairs in his department.
He knew that it was the desire of the Government and the people to seize and hold Richmond, which the conspirators had chosen for their future and permanent Headquarters.
The troops then in and around Washington City were barely sufficient to keep the hourly increasing host of the insurgents at Manassas in check; and the easiest and most expeditious route to Richmond seemed to be by way of the York and James Peninsula, and the James River, from Fortress Monroe.
With the capture of Richmond in view, Butler shaped all of his movements.
On the day after his arrival, the Commanding General sent out Colonel Phelps, at the head of some Vermont troops, to reconnoiter the vicinity of Hampton.
They were confronted at the bridge over Hampton Creek by the blazing timbers of that structure, which the insurgents had fired.
The Vermonters soon extinguished the flames, crossed the stream, entered Hampton, and drove what few armed opponents they found there out upon the roads leading toward Yorktown and Newport-Newce.1 They found the white inhabitants in sullen mood, but the negroes were jubilant, for they regarded the troops as their expected deliverers.
Colonel Phelps did not linger long in Hampton, but recrossed the bridge, and on the Segar farm he selected a place for an encampment, which was at once occupied by the Vermont regiment and another from Troy (the Second New York), under Colonel Carr, and named Camp Hamilton.
On the same day a small redoubt for two guns was cast up at the Fortress Monroe end of Hampton Bridge, so as to command that passage.
This was the first military work made by Union troops on the soil of Virginia.
On the evening of the 24th,
a circumstance occurred at Fortress Monroe which had a very important bearing upon the contest then opening.
In the confusion caused by Colonel Phelps's dash into Hampton, three negroes, claimed as the property of Colonel Mallory of that.
village, escaped to the Union lines, and declared that many of their race and class were employed by the insurgents in building fortifications,
1 There has been some discussion and considerable research concerning the true orthography of this locality and the origin of its name. The commonly received explanation is that, at one time, when the English colony at Jamestown was in a starving condition, the supply ships of Captain Newport were first seen off this point, and gave the beholders the good news of food at hand; hence the place was called Newport's News. History does not seem to warrant the acceptance of this theory, but furnishes a better. In 1619 Governor Yeardley established a representative government in Virginia, with simple machinery, and laid the political foundations of that State. This government was strengthened by his successor, Governor Wyatt, under whom were proper civil officers. In instructions to Wyatt occurs the following sentence:--“George Sandis is appointed Treasurer, and he is to put into execution all orders of Court about staple commodities; to the Marshal, Sir William Newce, the same.” This settles the point that there was a leading man in Virginia at that time named Newce--“Captain Nuse,” as Captain Smith wrote the name. A writer in the Historical Magazine (iii. 347) says, that on earlier maps of Virginia, which he has seen, he finds the point called Newport Neuse, which, he argues, is only another way of spelling Newce, and that the name given is a compound of the name of the celebrated navigator and the Virginia marshal, namely, Newport-Newce. This compounding of words in naming places was then common in England, and became so in this country, as Randolph-Macon, Hampton-Sidney, and Wilkes-Barre. In Captain Smith's map of Virginia, the place is called Point Hope. That map was made after the alleged discovery of Newport with his-supplies. Believing that the name was originally a compound of those of Captain Newport and Marshal Newce, the author of this work adopts the orthography given in the text-Newport — Newce.
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