The Battle of Big Bethel, also known as the Battle of Bethel Church or Great Bethel, was one of the earliest land battles of the American Civil War. It took place on the Virginia Peninsula, near Newport News, on June 10, 1861.
Virginia's decision to secede from the Union had been ratified by popular vote on May 23, and Confederate colonel (later major general) John B. Magruder was sent down the peninsula to deter any advance on the state capital Richmond by Union troops based at the well-defended post of Fort Monroe. This garrison was commanded by Major General Benjamin Butler, a former Massachusetts lawyer and politician, who established a new camp at nearby Hampton and another at Newport News. Magruder had also established two camps within range of the Union lines, at Big Bethel and Little Bethel, to lure his opponent into a premature action.
Butler took the bait, when he and an aide, Major Theodore Winthrop, devised a plan for a night march, followed by a dawn attack to drive the Confederates back from their bases. Butler chose not to lead the force in person, for which he was later criticized. The plan proved too complex for his poorly trained subordinates to carry out, especially at night, and his staff had also omitted to communicate the passwords. They were trying to advance without knowledge of the layout or strength of the Confederate positions when a friendly fire incident gave away their own. The commander in the field, Massachusetts militia general, Ebenezer Peirce, received most of the blame for the failed operation.
The Union forces suffered 76 casualties, with 18 killed, including Maj. Winthrop and Lt. John T. Greble, the first regular army officer killed in the war. The Confederates suffered only eight casualties, with one killed. Although Magruder subsequently withdrew to Yorktown and his defensive line along the Warwick River, he had won a propaganda victory, and local Union forces attempted no further significant advance until the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. While small compared to many later battles, Big Bethel attracted exaggerated importance because of the general feeling that the war would soon be over.
Background
Union holds, reinforces Fort Monroe
After the American Civil War began with the formal surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces on April 14, 1861, and President Lincoln's call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion on April 15, 1861, Virginia's political leaders quickly set in motion the process of seceding from the Union and joining the Confederacy. Even before secession was formally accomplished, Virginia agreed to coordinate its state military forces with the Confederacy and began to seize federal property. The United States Regular Army garrison under the command of Colonel Justin Dimick held Fort Monroe, a nearly impregnable fortress at Old Point Comfort on the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula between the York River and the James River where they empty into the Chesapeake Bay. The bay was to the east of the fort and Hampton Roads was to the south. The fort was supported by the Union Navy at Hampton Roads and could be reinforced and resupplied by water without attack by shore batteries or harassment by the nearly non-existent Virginia or Confederate naval forces. The fort was nearly immune from attack from the land side since it could be approached only over a narrow causeway and a narrow isthmus and had massive walls and hundreds of cannons. An inlet called Mill Creek was the body of water that almost cut the fort off from the mainland of the Peninsula.
Colonel Dimick refused to surrender the fort and the small and poorly equipped Virginia (soon to be Confederate) militia forces in the area had no hope of taking the fort by force, especially after April 20, 1861, when the small Union garrison was reinforced by two Massachusetts volunteer regiments within a few days of the Virginia convention voting to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861. This important fort provided a base for the blockade of Norfolk, Virginia, and the Chesapeake Bay and for the recovery of southeast Virginia and the Virginia Peninsula for the Union.
Because Massachusetts militia forces were ready to respond to President Lincoln's call for volunteers, two 90–day regiments, the 3rd Massachusetts Militia commanded by Colonel David W. Wardrop and the 4th Massachusetts Militia commanded by Colonel Abner B. Packard, were able to reinforce Fort Monroe's garrison of 415 regulars within five days of the President's call. The 4th Massachusetts was the first to arrive. These reinforcements helped ensure that this strong point and base of operations would be fully prepared for defense and saved for the Union. On May 13, 1861, the 1st Regiment, Vermont Volunteer Infantry, under Colonel J. Wolcott Phelps joined the garrison and several other volunteer regiments from New York soon followed.
On May 14, 1861, while Colonel Dimick was still in command of the garrison, he seized a well just outside the fort in what was then Elizabeth City County because the fort did not have enough water even for its original small garrison. His forces also occupied the Mill Creek Bridge, which was needed for access to the peninsula from the fort and the nearby Clark farm. The fort soon could not hold all of the arriving reinforcements so Union forces established Camp Troy, soon renamed Camp Hamilton in honor of an aide to General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, on the Segar farm on the Hampton side of Mill Creek, within range of the guns of Fort Monroe.
Butler takes command, expands Union bridgehead
While Colonel Dimick remained in command of the 415 regular army soldiers, Volunteer Major General Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts took command of Fort Monroe and the entire garrison on May 23, 1861. With continuing reinforcements, Butler could not only retain the Union hold on Fort Monroe but support the Union blockade of the Chesapeake Bay, move up the Peninsula, and threaten to retake Norfolk, Virginia, and other locations on the south side of Hampton Roads from the Confederates.
On May 27, 1861, General Butler sent a force 8 miles (13 km) west to occupy the lightly defended adjacent town of Newport News at Newport News Point, an excellent anchorage for the Union Navy. This force established and significantly fortified Camp Butler and a battery at Newport News Point that could cover the entrance to the James River ship canal and the mouth of the Nansemond River. By May 29 Butler's force, which included the 1st Vermont Infantry, Colonel John A. Bendix's 7th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment (a regiment of German speakers), the 4th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Scott's Life Guards and a detachment of U.S. regulars to man artillery, completed the mission. On June 8, 1861, the camp, which was commanded by Colonel Phelps of the 1st Vermont Infantry, also was reinforced by the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Hawkin's Zouaves). Butler also further occupied and expanded Camp Hamilton, started by Colonel Dimick in the equally lightly defended, adjacent town of Hampton, just beyond the confines of the fort and within the range of its guns. After Colonel Abram Duryee of the 5th New York Infantry commanded Camp Hamilton for a week, on June 4, 1861, Massachusetts militia Brigadier General Ebenezer Peirce assumed command.
Confederate response
Major General Robert E. Lee in charge of Virginia (soon to be Confederate) forces, which already were in league with the Confederacy, responded to the growing Union threat from Fort Monroe by sending Colonel John Bankhead Magruder to defend the southeastern area of the Peninsula and push Union forces back to the fort. Magruder was given the command on May 21, 1861. On May 24 he established his headquarters at Yorktown, Virginia and set up his defenses. Soon Magruder's original small Virginia force was increased to about 1,500 men by the inclusion of Colonel Daniel Harvey Hill's 1st North Carolina Volunteer Infantry, Lieutenant Colonel William D. Stuart's 3rd Virginia Infantry (Wythe Rifles), a cavalry battalion under Major E.B. Montague, and the Richmond Howitzer Artillery Battalion under Major George W. Randolph (grandson of Thomas Jefferson and future Confederate Secretary of War).
On June 6 Magruder sent D.H. Hill and the 1st North Carolina Volunteers and Randolph and part of the Richmond Howitzer Battalion with four artillery pieces to Big Bethel Church (or Great Bethel Church) within 8 miles (13 km) of the Union's camps at Newport News and Hampton to establish an advanced position at that location. When the Confederates arrived at Big Bethel Church, they found it marked with writings on the walls such as "Death to traitors," which were left by Union soldiers during an earlier reconnaissance and which greatly annoyed the Confederates. Hill seized high ground just north of the west branch of the Back River and established a well-fortified camp which crossed the road between Yorktown and Hampton and commanded the bridge over the Back River. On the north side of the river, Hill had his men dig entrenchments, laying out the position in the form of a square. He had an outlying position guarding an old ford on his left and a redoubt for a howitzer on his right and across the river. He also had some flank protection from heavy woods and marshes. Magruder's force also established an outpost at Little Bethel Church about 8 miles (13 km) from Hampton. The fortified position at Big Bethel Church was a short distance further north from Little Bethel Church, along and mainly north of Marsh Creek (now named Brick Kiln Creek), a tributary of Back Creek. The position at Big Bethel Church crossed and blocked the main road between Yorktown and Hampton. Magruder's force of almost 1,500 men occupied the position at Big Bethel Church, while only around 50 cavalrymen manned the outpost at Little Bethel Church. On June 8 Hill sent detachments to drive Union foraging (or pillaging) parties back to the fort.
Butler plans to drive Confederates back
Butler wished to drive the Confederates back from their advanced positions at Little Bethel and Big Bethel because they had begun attacking and harassing his pickets and patrols with squads from these outposts, threatening his bases outside of Fort Monroe and his lines of communication with them and standing in the way of his planned move up the Peninsula toward Richmond, the new capital of the Confederacy. An escaped slave, George Scott, who was working for the Union Army at Fort Monroe, was able to scout the Confederate position at Big Bethel and give a good report to Butler, but Butler knew little about the Confederate position at Little Bethel, which he assumed was also a substantial installation manned by a large force. Along with his aide, Major Theodore Winthrop, already an accomplished author, Butler devised a plan for a night march and surprise attack on the Confederate position at Little Bethel at dawn by columns converging from Newport News and Hampton. Butler's main objective was Little Bethel, where he expected to find a large Confederate force. Only after Little Bethel was taken would the commander in the field proceed to Big Bethel, if he chose to do so.
Battle
Union plan, advance
On the night of June 9–10, according to the plan devised by Butler and Winthrop, 3,500 Union soldiers were sent in two columns from Camp Hamilton at Hampton and Camp Butler at Newport News with orders to converge near the Confederate positions at Little Bethel after a night march and launch a surprise attack on the Confederate positions at Little Bethel at dawn. After taking Little Bethel, if the commander of the force chose to do so, he could go on to attack Big Bethel. The entire force was under the immediate overall command of Brigadier General Ebenezer W. Peirce, a Massachusetts militia general of apparent bravery but no regular army, military school or other formal military training or combat experience. Earlier in the day on June 9 Butler had summoned Peirce from Camp Hamilton to Fort Monroe to advise him of the plan. Foreshadowing the further difficulties that would arise during the operation, Peirce was too ill to ride his horse and went to the fort by boat.
Peirce was ordered to first send Colonel Abram Duryee's 5th New York Volunteer Infantry (Duryée's Zouaves) from Camp Hamilton at Hampton to a point between Little Bethel and Big Bethel and then, after having cut the road to Big Bethel, to attack the Confederates at Little Bethel. Colonel Frederick Townsend's 3rd New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, with two howitzers, was to march from Hampton after the 5th New York Infantry had departed and provide support at Little Bethel. Meanwhile, Colonel John W. Phelps, commanding at Newport News, would send detachments from his own 1st Vermont Infantry and Colonel David W. Wardrop's 4th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment (90–day militia) under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Peter T. Washburn to approach Little Bethel from the opposite side. Washburn would be followed by Colonel Bendix's German–speaking 7th New York Infantry Regiment and two artillery pieces manned by regulars from the 2nd U.S. Artillery Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant John T. Greble. The plan was for this force to meet the 3rd New York Infantry under Townsend at a road junction about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Little Bethel and form a combined reserve. Peirce and his staff headed for Little Bethel with Townsend's 3rd New York Infantry Regiment.