Background
Although providing for a vote 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, which was three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces and two days after President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to reclaim federal property and to suppress the rebellion. During the night of April 20, 1861, the Commander of the U. S. Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk County, Virginia (now the Norfolk Naval Yard in the City of Portsmouth, Virginia) Charles S. McCauley, fearing he could not hold the yard against the rebels and although without instructions from authorities in Washington, D.C., ordered the evacuation and burning of the yard and any ships that could not be sailed away, including the USS Merrimack. This ended the presence of Union land forces in the Norfolk area of south Hampton Roads for over one year. On April 27, 1861, President Lincoln ordered the Union blockade of the Confederacy extended to the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina, which were already in the process of joining the Confederate States of America although they did not officially do so until May 1861.
Virginia Militia Major General and, effective May 1, 1861, Virginia Provisional Army Brigadier General Walter Gwynn, a former U.S. Army engineering officer and former railroad engineer and surveyor, sited and supervised the construction of batteries to defend Norfolk, Virginia in late April and early May 1861, including the battery at Sewell's Point. Gwynn commanded the defense of Norfolk until he was relieved by regular Confederate forces on May 23, 1861.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Sewell's Point
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