Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/141



OPERATIONS ABOUT NORFOLK AND YORKTOWN—BATTLE OF BIG BETHEL—BURNING OF HAMPTON.

COTT'S fourth line of invasion had for its objective the capture of Richmond by way of "the peninsula" from Fort Monroe, using the navy on the James and York rivers to guard the flanks of the movement. Before this could be successfully made it was necessary to secure Norfolk and the Gosport navy yard and their defenses, which guarded the entrance to the waterway of the James, and Yorktown and Gloucester point, which guarded that to the York.

The general-in-chief was a soldier, who, naturally, placed the most reliance upon the army to carry out his plans. Therefore he attached the greatest importance to the direct movement on Richmond from Washington, by way of Manassas, and gathered his largest army for that purpose. Yet, one well informed as to the defensive conditions of Virginia, and especially of Richmond, at the beginning of the war, can but wonder that the most important movement was not made by way of the peninsula by the army, aided by the navy on the York and the James, since at that time there had been no preparations worth mentioning to prevent such a movement or the capture of Virginia's capital. This can only be accounted for by the demoralized condition in which the war and the navy departments of the United States were left by the resignation, as soon as Virginia passed an ordinance of secession, of such a large proportion of the best officers of these two arms of the service, natives of Virginia and other Southern States.

As before stated, when it had been decided that the Virginia convention would provide for secession, the first two objects to demand the attention of the executive were the capture of the armory and arsenal at Harper's Ferry and the arsenal and navy yard at Gosport in the vicinity of Norfolk. On the night of April 16th, some men in Norfolk, without authority, seized light boats and Rh