Comments on the Map “Union Monitors Shell the Howlett’s Farm Area, June 19, 1864”
I started with a base map found between pages 632 and 633 (and still represented as folded together at Google Books!) of Volume 11 of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Luckily, a passable but still slightly folded version of the map is available online at the University of North Texas Libraries site, allowing me to snip out the relevant portion at a good resolution. I removed Battery Wood and Battery Brooke on the Confederate side because they were not operational until October 864. I also removed Battery Sawyer on the Union side because it was not completed and operational until about a week after this small affair. In addition, Battery Semmes is located in the wrong place on the Official Records map, and I had to shift the name further north to the James. See this map as just one source I found which places Battery Semmes on the James River near Howlett’s Farm. The linked map places the Union monitors in Trent’s Reach at about 1800 to 2400 yards from Battery Semmes, and by extension the Confederate James River Squadron nearby, on the afternoon of June 19, 1864. Also keep in mind that the Howlett House Battery, later called Battery Dantzler, was not QUITE operational on June 19. So even though you see Battery Dantzler on the western end of Trent’s Reach, know that this battery played no role in this small affair. That battery would play a LARGE role in an action two days later, on June 21, 1864, as soon as its guns were placed.
Source:
- Base map: United States. War Department. Map of the James River from Chaffin’s Bluff to City Point, map, 1900; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth284650/m1/1/: accessed February 26, 2021), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department. Some fortifications and Dutch Gap Canal were removed since they did not yet exist. In addition, ships and labels were created. This new map is copyrighted by Brett Schulte, 2021 and may not be reproduce without his express written consent. All rights reserved. ↩
Very helpful.
Thanks! I can’t wait to see what you write about the action on the James River in this time frame in your upcoming book on the Second Offensive.
Brett
Do you have any corroborating evidence of this action, other than Parker’s account in “Recollections of a Confederate Naval Officer?”
Tom, yes I do. Flag-Officer Mitchell wrote a brief passage about the action on page 704 of the Naval Official Records, Volume X. He believes the Confederates reached the position near Howlett’s Bluff around 1:30, slightly earlier than Parker recalls. In a PS on that same report, he mentions Battery Dantzler will open at noon on June 21. Interestingly, the Union officers did not comment on this one. Despite what Parker assumes about Butler’s signal tower seeing the masts of the Confederate gunboats accompanying their ironclads, I’m not sure the Union side realized they had nearly hit the Confederate ironclads, or that they were even there.
Parker didn’t assume that the Federals on the signal tower could see the Confederate gunboats. He just said that the Confederate sailors on the gunboats could see the signal tower. I merely inferred that if the sailors could see the signal tower, men in the signal tower could see the gunboats. John Horn, “Lee Besieged. “Grant’s Second Peterssburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864” (Savas Beatie, 2025), 27-29. The map is on page 29. Other experiments with indirect firing were going on along James River in June and August 1864.
Thanks. I can’t find any record that observers in the tower played a role as “spotters” for the Union ironclads in the June 21 action. Parker mentions it during the June 19 episode, but no one on either side that I’ve found mentions it playing a role in the June 21 event…
Correct. The Federals didn’t employ indirect fire on June 21. The Confederates did.
ORN 10:187
June 21 Report of Flag Officer Mitchell, CSS Virginia. “As the distance of the enemy was near the extreme range of our guns, and the fire was directed over high intervening banks, the aim could only be determined by the smoke of the enemy’s guns or directions from lookouts on elevated positions on shore.” (Emphasis added.)
ORN 10:189
June 21 Report of Commander Rootes, CSS Fredericksburg: “Sent one of the signal men on the shore at Howlett’s to see and inform me how the shot struck; also Acting Master Minor and Midshipman Goode were sent on the same duty. Sent Midshipman Goode to lower Howlett’s to see and inform me how our shot and those of the other vessels of the squadron struck. He informed me that a greater number fell short.” (Emphasis added.)