Battle of Sewell's Point - Aftermath

Aftermath

After the battle, the USS Thomas Freeborn joined the Federal Potomac Flotilla. Under the command of Commander James H. Ward, the Thomas Freeborn attacked the Confederate batteries at the confluence of the Potomac River and Aquia Creek in the Battle of Aquia Creek on May 29 and 30 and June 1, 1861, to little effect.

The Sewell's Point battery and other batteries in the area engaged Union vessels on other occasions over the next 12 months, including engagements of Union vessels or supporting fire against them during the clash of the ironclads (the Union's USS Monitor and the Confederacy's CSS Virginia, formerly USS Merrimack) during the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. Union Navy gunboats, including the Monitor, shelled the Sewell's Point batteries and other targets in the area again on May 8, 1862. Because of the threat of invasion by the large Union Army force at Fort Monroe across Hampton Roads from the threatened cities of Norfolk, Virginia and Portsmouth, Virginia and the County of Norfolk, Virginia, although many of the Union soldiers were then engaged in the Peninsula Campaign, the Confederates evacuated the Norfolk area on May 9, 1862 and the early morning of May 10, 1862. Federal troops occupied Norfolk and Portsmouth on May 10, 1862. When they arrived at Norfolk and Portsmouth, the Federal troops found that the Confederates had abandoned the batteries at Sewell's Point and other fortified positions in the vicinity.

No sign of the Sewell's Point battery exists today. The location is within the U.S. Navy's Norfolk Naval Base.