American Civil War
During the American Civil War (1861-1865) the canal was in an important strategic position for Union and Confederate forces. In April, 1862, upon learning of rumors that the canal would be used to help the Confederate ironclad escape from Hampton Roads to the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, Union General Ambrose E. Burnside sent General Jesse L. Reno from Roanoke Island to destroy the Culpepper Locks near South Mills on the Dismal Swamp Canal. Reno's 3,000 troops disembarked from their transports near Elizabeth City on April 18.
The Union troops advanced the following morning on an exhausting march toward South Mills where Confederate Colonel Ambrose R. Wright posted his 900 men to command the road to the town. Reno encountered Wright's position at noon. The Confederates' determined fighting continued for four hours until their artillery commander, Captain W. W. McComas, was killed. To avoid being flanked, Wright retired behind Joy's Creek, two miles away. General Reno did not pursue them because of his losses and his troops' exhaustion. That evening he heard a rumor that Confederate reinforcements were arriving from Norfolk and ordered a silent march back to the transports near Elizabeth City. The losses were estimated at 114 Union and 25 Confederate soldiers.
The Battle of South Mills was the only battle action near the canal. However, wartime activity left the canal in a terrible state of repair. The repairs and maintenance needed by the canal made travel difficult.
Read more about this topic: Dismal Swamp Canal
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, american civil, american, civil and/or war:
“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Let’s face it. Let’s talk sense to the American people. Let’s tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others ...”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)