Battle of Aquia Creek - Aftermath

Aftermath

On June 27, 1861, Commander James Harmon Ward became the first United States Navy officer killed during the American Civil War. He was killed while his vessel, the Thomas Freeborn was giving close support to a landing party which was attempting to silence another Confederate battery and to set up a Union battery along the Potomac River at nearby Mathias Point in King George County, Virginia.

Following the battle of Aquia Creek, the Confederates reinforced their defenses in the area by constructing a third battery on the bluff at Aquia and a fourth across the mouth of Aquia Creek at Brent Point. On July 7, Confederates placed mines off Aquia Creek in the Potomac River, marking the first such use in the war. The mines, which were 80-gallon casks supporting a boiler-iron torpedo and enough gunpowder to blow up a ship the size of the Pawnee were spotted by Pawnee sailors as the devices were floating toward them. The mines were later removed from the river by sailors from the Resolute, although one of the mines actually sank into the river.

By the end of October 1861, the Confederate batteries effectively closed the Potomac River for a short time until the Union Navy slowly discovered that the batteries could not hit passing vessels, probably due at least in part to poor quality gunpowder. Despite the Union Navy's conclusion about the lack of threat from the Confederate guns, the Navy forbade civilian traffic on the Potomac River while the batteries were in operation in the event the Confederates might score a lucky hit.

After Major General George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army on November 1, 1861, President Lincoln repeatedly requested that McClellan oust the Confederates from these positions but McClellan did not move. By the time Lincoln ordered McClellan to take action against the batteries in General War Order No. 3 on March 8, 1862 and McClellan moved against them, the Confederates had abandoned the positions. The Confederates abandoned the batteries in early March 1862 when General Joseph E. Johnston recalled their garrisons in preparation to defend Richmond at the start of the Peninsula Campaign. On March 9, 1862, sailors on the Anacostia and USS Yankee noted unusual fires and explosions at the Confederate batteries at Cockpit Point and Shipping Point and Union forces discovered that the Confederate batteries at Aquia and along the Potomac River had been abandoned. The Union Army used the wharves and storage building at Aquia Landing until June 7, 1863 when the army headed north for the Battle of Gettysburg. The Union Army used the facilities again in 1864 during the Overland Campaign.