April 11 - May 4, 1863 - The Siege of Suffolk; the Jones–Imboden Raid

April 11 - May 3, 1863

The "Siege" of Suffolk  (or The Battle of Suffolk, or, separately: the Battle of Norfleet House, the Battle of Providence Church Road, and the Battle of Hill's Point)

Suffolk, VA

* The Union successfully holds Suffolk. 

* This is what Longstreet was doing before he was recalled for the Battle of Chancellorsville - foraging and harassing occupiers, not to mention guarding Richmond's backdoor.  

Dix: Maj. Gen. John J. Peck's Suffolk garrison > one division from the VII Corps under Brigadier General Michael Corcoran, then two more;  Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee lent two flotillas from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron for naval support, etc.

vs.

Longstreet with D.H. Hill: John Bell Hood, French, and George Pickett, etc.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=103986

Confederate Dead

Erected by Thos W. Smith in memory of his comrades.

This shaft on which we carve no name, shall guide Virginia's youth - a sign-post on the road to fame, to honor and to truth.

A silent sentry, it shall stand to guard thro' coming time their graves who died for native land and duty most sublime.

With shouts above the battle's roar they join the legions gone before; they bravely fought, they bravely fell, they wore the Gray and wore it well.

1861-1889

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=273610

Siege of Suffolk
Bacon for the Confederacy

The monument before you was erected in 1889 by Col. Thomas W. Smith in honor of his Confederate “comrades.” Smith had served as a 2nd Lt. in the local unit, “Marion Rangers,” which was assigned as Co. A, 16th Virginia Infantry, Mahone’s Brigade, during the Civil War.

The town of Suffolk was of considerable strategic importance during the Civil War. On May 12, 1862, Col. Charles C. Dodge’s 1st New York Mounted Rifles rode into Suffolk and began the Union occupation that would last throughout the war. Mayor Benjamin Riddick surrendered the town to Dodge with the assurance that peaceable citizens’ rights would be protected. Additional Federal troops from Camp Butler, under the command of Brig. Gen. J.K.F. Mansfield, quickly moved into Suffolk as local Confederate troops withdrew west to the Blackwater River.

When the Union IX Corps reinforced Fort Monroe in February 1863, Robert E. Lee countered by sending Lt. Gen. James Longstreet with the divisions of John Bell Hood, George Pickett and Samuel French to the Tidewater region to block any possible advance against Richmond via Petersburg from Suffolk. It was Longstreet’s first independent command. After an unsuccessful expedition in North Carolina, Longstreet began his operations against Maj. Gen. J.J. Peck’s 15,000-man force in Suffolk on April 11, 1863. The Confederates drove the Federals into their fortifications and began erecting their outer ring of earthworks around the town. Longstreet believed that Suffolk could be captured in a few days but felt that the Confederates could not “afford to spend the powder and ball” or spare the men to hold onto it. During the following weeks, Peck’s force was reinforced to 29,000 men and the Federal gunboats blocked any Confederate advance across the Nansemond River. The siege was a series of skirmishes between the opposing forces highlighted by the Union capture of Fort Huger on the Western Branch of the Nansemond River.

Longstreet abandoned the siege on May 4, 1863, to help Lee defend against Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s move towards Richmond. Even though the siege was unable to dislodge the Union control of Suffolk, it was considered a success since the Confederates were able to forage valuable supplies from the surrounding rich countryside and contain any Federal Southside advance against Richmond.

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In Sept. 1862, the busy noises of daily life for a family of seven were replaced by the constant activity of a general's wartime headquarters. Before the Civil War Nathaniel Riddick, his wife and five children called this spacious 21-room house their home. But the war disrupted their lives, and they relocated to Petersburg, Va., in 1862.

When Union forces arrived in Suffolk in 1863 the house was unattended and U.S. commander Gen. John J. Peck kept his headquarters here for almost a year. From this house he organized defenses and fortifications around Suffolk. The defenses proved crucial during the Siege of Suffolk in the spring of 1863. After its time as headquarters, the home served as a temporary hospital for sick and wounded soldiers from in and around Suffolk.

When the Riddick family returned in 1865, they found their home looted for its furnishings and accessories. Both Union and Confederate soldiers had written penciled messages and autographs on the walls of the home which have been carefully preserved and are still legible today.

[sidebar] 

This restored Greek Revival-style house before you was built in 1847 by Mills Riddick. Due to its impressive size and extravagance, Mill's contemporaries ridiculed the house and labeled the building "Riddick's Folly." Descendants of the Riddick family continued to live in this home for 128 years.

[caption]

The Mills Riddick House's distinctive design features Flemish gables, five eyebrow windows just below the eaves, and interior carved cypress woodwork. - Courtesy Riddick's Folly Museum.

  

If you'll indulge me: A previous version of this marker, should one choose to cite such things, had addition details.

Riddick’s Folly played an important role in Suffolk’s Civil War experience. At the outbreak of the war, Mill’s son Nathaniel and wife Missouri resided in the home with their six children. However, when the Union forces occupied Suffolk in 1862, the family was forced to evacuate. Riddick’s Folly became the headquarters of Maj. Gen. John James Peck, commander of the Union division controlling the Suffolk area. Peck used the house intermittently from September 8, 1862, to August 1, 1863, after which he was appointed commander of the Union district of North Carolina.

This large Greek Revival structure provided ample space for Peck and his entire staff. The house was simultaneously used as a hospital for sick and wounded Union soldiers. Many of the penciled messages and autographs written on the walls by those soldiers have been carefully preserved and are still legible today.

The family eventually returned to Riddick’s Folly once the Confederate threat to Suffolk ended and the Union troops evacuated the town (November 1865). They found that the house had been completely looted - only a single chair remained.

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https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=267245

Nansemond River Crossing
Battle of Providence Church Road

In the summer of 1862[*], the waterfront here on the Nansemond River was packed with soldiers and artillery: Union Gen. John J. Peck's men built a series of earthwork forts, batteries, and trenches around the entire town. This position was a key crossing point. Union infantrymen in trenches on the high ground just behind you were prepared for a Confederate attack at any moment. Two Union gunboats, USS Smith Briggs and USS West End, patrolled the river to prevent an enemy crossing.

Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's men partially surrounded the town from April 11 to May 3, 1863. During this time, the two sides exchanged rifle and artillery fire at various points across the river, but the Confederates made no attempt to cross.

In the morning of May 3, four regiments of Union infantry crossed the bridge here and advanced on the Confederate picket lines on the north side, driving them back. The purpose of this probe was to test the strength of the Confederate lines to see if they were being thinned in advance of lifting the siege. The pickets withdrew to their main lines, which stood firm, offering no evidence of any planned retreat from Suffolk. This action became known as the Battle of Providence Church Road. Ironically, the Confederates did, in fact, withdraw all their forces around Suffolk that night in the darkness, just hours after the day's heavy fighting ended.

"The enemy's works are very elaborate and strong, and in my opinion, if taken at all, can only be taken at an immense sacrifice of life." -Pvt. Armistead Burwell, 14th Virginia Infantry, April 20, 1863

* I'm pretty sure this marker has a typo: unless they were getting ready a whole summer early, this action was in 1863. Unless "Sept 8" is "Summer," the previous marker indicates Peck wasn't even here yet. Of course the next marker suggest the town was occupied in '62, which might also be true, but I apologize for any inaccurate conflation and welcome correction. 

Visited all four "stars" today [Aug. 2025]

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=76803

A community developed here in the 1720s around John Constant's wharf, dwelling, and tobacco warehouse. The Virginia House of Burgesses chartered the town of Suffolk in 1742. It was incorporated as a town in 1808 and as a city in 1910; in 1974 it merged with Nansemond County. American troops occupied Suffolk during the Revolutionary War and a British force burned it on 13 May 1779. The Marquis de Lafayette visited the town in February 1825 during his American tour. Union forces held Suffolk for most of the Civil War. The town suffered disastrous fires in 1837, 1885, and 1888 but was quickly rebuilt each time.

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https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=267248

Union Town
Creating a New Community

You are looking at the site of 'Union Town,' a bustling community established after the U.S. Army occupied Suffolk in 1862. In the months that followed thousands of formerly enslaved people self-emancipated and gathered here to craft a new life. Initially classified as "Contraband of War," by the Union Army, these residents constructed earthworks, worked as teamsters, and assisted with other tasks to support the war effort.

Sheltered at first in tents, the inhabitants soon erected clapboard huts that housed more than 2,000 people. This community was laid out with streets, schools and a church, all constructed "from pine and other growths of timber in the surroundings." After the Emancipation Proclamation authorized the enlistment of Black troops in January 1863, many men joined United States Colored Troops regiments. When Union troops left Suffolk six months later, the inhabitants of Union Town moved on with the army.

"I traveled 65 miles and we had 52 in our number. Before we crost the river we could hear the pickets [swords] strike the stirrup and we taught we would be taken any moment... we reached Suffolk that night and we lost twenty one of the Number." -Testimony from Union Town resident

Sources:

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battles-detail.htm?battleCode=va031

https://civilwartraveler.blog/2024/05/03/the-siege-of-suffolk-april-11-may-3-1863/

https://civilwartraveler.blog/2024/05/05/suffolk-va-other-sites/

https://13thnhregt150.blogspot.com/2013/05/battle-of-providence-church-road.html

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Meanwhile, at roughly the same time, a ways away to the northwest...

April – May, 1863 

Jones–Imboden Raid

[West] Virginia and Western Maryland

Brig. Gens. William E. Jones and John D. Imboden

* Disruptive military success, though it failed to prevent West Virginia from becoming a state

* first planned by McNeill of McNeill's Rangers, who get involved, along with the Maryland 1st Cavalry Battalion 

The Great Raid
Path of Destruction
— Jones-Imboden Raid —

In March 1863, Confederate Gen. John D. Imboden presented Gen. Robert E. Lee a plan to invade the northwestern counties of Virginia. Imboden’s goals were to destroy Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridges and trestles, recruit young men for the Confederate army, and attack Union garrisons at Beverly, Philippi, and Buckhannon. Lee approved the plan, which also called for Gen. William E. “Grumble” Jones to wreck the railroad line to the north, with Imboden attacking Federal positions at Beverly and vicinity. On April 20, Imboden departed from Buffalo Gap, about ten miles northwest of Staunton, with 3,365 men. They passed near this spot two days later. Jones and his 3,000 men left camp near Harrisonburg on April 21.

By the time they returned to Buffalo Gap on May 25, Imboden’s men had traveled more than 400 miles and Jones’s command more than 700 miles. Together and separately, the raiders had occupied Beverly, Philippi, and Buckhannon, captured 700 Federals, seized about 1,200 horses and 4,000 cattle, and burned 4 turnpike bridges, more than 20 railroad bridges, 2 trains, and 150,000 barrels of oil. They also occupied Morgantown, thereby causing a brief panic in western Pennsylvania. Most bridges were soon repaired, and by May 17, the railroad line was restored. By May 26, both commands had returned to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Casualties were approximately 800 for the Federals and fewer than 100 for the Confederates. Although about 500 young men joined the Confederate forces during the raid, both Lee and Imboden overestimated the loyalty of the residents to old Virginia.

On April 20, the day that Gen, John D. Imboden began his part of the raid, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that all conditions for West Virginia statehood had been fulfilled. The new state, the only one to have separated from another state, formally entered the Union on June 20, 1863.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=253469

Take the loose gravel road at the top of the mountain to get to Camp Allegheny (see Dec. 13, 1861). Bounce back to Huttonsville for more on this raid.   

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=32890

Two markers are at the intersection with the gas station (and the pay phone) one for the First Campaign and another for the Jones-Imboden Raid, obviously both around here. See Summer 1861 for the other one. 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=155086

Huttonsville
On the Eve of Battle
— Jones-Imboden Raid —

On April 20, 1863, Confederate Gens. William E. “Grumble” Jones and John D. Imboden began a raid from Virginia through present-day West Virginia against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Taking separate routes, they later reported that they marched 1,100 miles, fought several engagements, captured 100 Federals, seized about 1,200 horses and 4,000 cattle, and burned 4 turnpike bridges, more than 20 railroad bridges, 2 trains, and 150,000 barrels of oil. Most bridges were soon repaired. Confederate losses were slight. By May 26, both commands had returned to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

On April 23, 1863, Gen John D. Imboden and his 3,300 cavalrymen rested here in the Tygart Valley after marching from Bartow 23 miles southeast on the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike. En route, they had waded the frigid, slush-filled Greenbrier River and then crossed Cheat Mountain where deep snow had fallen the night before. Now they prepared to attack Beverly.

Imboden was uncertain how many Federals were at the town and whether or not they knew of his impending attack. Capt. Joseph French Harding, who had  attended school at the Huttonsville Academy, led a scouting party to the town. As they returned at dawn on April 24, Harding’s men encountered the Randolph County sheriff, Jesse Frank Phares, desperately riding north on the turnpike to warn the Federals at Beverly. Harding later wrote, “{I} ran on to the road and fired directly after him. We knew at the time that he was wounded, but he pluckily kept his saddle until reaching the Federal pickets at the bridge about two miles distant, and there gave them their first information of our advance.”

Harding reported that there were 1,100 Federal soldiers in Beverly. Imboden had already ordered his troops to start the twelve-mile march to the town. He divided his command into two columns near the present site of Dailey, advancing down both sides of the Tygart River. Thick fog in the valley obscured their movements until 1 P.M. By 5 P.M., the Federals had started to retreat from Beverly to Philippi.

The 25th and 31st Virginia Infantry regiments were formed here at Huttonsville on June 14, 1861. They were part of Confederate Gen. Robert S. Garnett's Army of the Northwest. When Imboden wrote to Gen. Robert E. Lee in March 1863 of his plans for an invasion of northwestern Virginia, he asked for these regiments: "These two old regiments are from the northwest ... and would fight like tigers the vandals who have so long domineered over their helpless families." On April 9, Lee ordered the two regiments from eastern Virginia by railroad to Staunton to join the raiders.

Seems like I could easily swing a trip to Morgantown in the near future. Maybe after I finish off the Peninsula Campaign...and start the (first) Valley Campaign....

Also...see also Camp Bartow (Oct. 1861)

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=58229

Camp Bartow
Springtime Snow and Mud
—Jones-Imboden Raid —

On April 20, 1863, Confederate Gens. William F. “Grumble” Jones and John D. Imboden began a raid from Virginia through present-day West Virginia on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Taking separate routes, they later reported that they marched 1,100 miles , fought several engagements, captured 700 Federals, seized about 1,200 horses and 4,000 cattle, and burned 4 turnpike bridges, more than 20 railroad bridges, 2 trains, and 150,000 barrels of oil. Most bridges were soon repaired. Confederate losses were slight. By May 26, both commands had returned to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

On April 22, 1863, the third day of the Jones-Imboden Raid, Gen. John D. Imboden’s 3,300 soldiers rested here at Camp Bartow after covering 18 miles in the rain and mud over Allegheny Mountain on the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike. The day had begun on the eastern side of the mountain with martial glory and regimental flags flying. Seventeen-year-old John A. McNeill, of Pocahontas County, later recalled: “It was a fine Spring day … and with fife and drum they moved out. … The scene was too much for my young rebel heart.” But now Imboden and his men were deep into the mountains.

Leaving here on April 23, the Confederates rode northwest on the turnpike. They had to cross the freezing, slush-filled Greenbrier River about three miles west. Then they came to Cheat Mountain, which rises a thousand feet in fewer than five miles by road from the river. Adding to the ordeal of climbing the steep road, between six and twenty inches of snow had fallen the night before. The exhausted men and horses reached Huttonsville after dark and then prepared for the attack on Beverly the next day.

(sidebar)

The trenches located .25 mile southeast above Travelers Repose were built for the Confederate camp before an engagement here on October 3, 1861. Many of the soldiers who were in the Jones-Imboden Raid also were in that fight. Corp. James E. Hall, Co. H, 31st Virginia Infantry, wrote in his diary of revisiting this site on April 22, 1863: “A very different scenery is presented to the eye now, compared to the way [Camp Bartow] was when occupied by the troops [in 1861]. The hard baked earth has given way to luxurious vegetation, and all over that broad camp a dead silence reigns following the hum and stir of busy camp life. The graves of our soldiers who fell in the battle are all sodded over, and the green grass waves in beauty over those fallen heroes.”

(captions)

Gen. John D. Imboden Courtesy Library of Congress

Cavalry in the snow - Courtesy Library of Congress

Gen. William E. Jones Courtesy West Virginia State Archives

James E. Hall Courtesy Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones%E2%80%93Imboden_Raid