Background
Although providing for a referendum on May 23, 1861, the Virginia state convention voted for and effectively accomplished the secession of that state from the Union on April 17, 1861, three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces and two days after President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion. On April 22, 1861, Governor John Letcher of Virginia gave Robert E. Lee command of Virginia State forces with the rank of major general. General Lee dispatched Captain William F. Lynch of the Virginia State navy to examine the defensible points on the Potomac River, and to take measures for the establishment of batteries to prevent Union vessels from navigating that river. On April 24, 1861, Major Thomas H. Williamson of the Virginia Army engineers and Lieut. H. H. Lewis of the Virginia Navy examined the ground at Aquia Creek, and selected Split Rock Bluff as the best point for a battery, as the channel there could be commanded from that point by guns of sufficient caliber.
On April 27, 1861, President Lincoln ordered the Union blockade of the Confederacy extended to the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina since those states were already in the process of joining the Confederate States of America. Both the Union and Confederacy then wanted to deny use of the Potomac River to the other side.
On May 8, 1861, Major Williamson began construction on fortifications at the Aquia Creek landing, mainly to protect the terminus of the Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, which had its northern terminus at the landing, from seizure by Union Army forces. About May 14, 1861, Captain Lynch and Lieutenant Lewis, along with Commander Robert D. Thorburn and Lieutenant John Wilkinson of the Virginia State Navy, had erected at Aquia a battery of thirteen guns to protect the railroad terminal. The battery also was a threat to close the navigation of the Potomac River in line with the original mission to site guns to command the river. On May 10, 1861, Confederate authorities appointed General Lee to command Confederate troops in Virginia. Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles assumed overall command of the batteries although they remained under the immediate command of Captain Lynch at Aquia.
The Confederate battery at Aquia Landing was first spotted by the USS Mount Vernon on May 14, 1861, but the Mount Vernon made no attack on the position. Since the first battery at Aquia was at the river level and intended mainly to protect the railroad terminal, the Confederates strengthened defenses at Aquia before May 29, 1861 by the addition of a second battery atop the bluffs to the south of the confluence of the Aquia Creek with the Potomac River as originally selected by the scouting party.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Aquia Creek
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