| Let's take a quick look at the history and purpose of Fort Brady. Fort Brady was built after the battles of late September 1864, with the intent of neutralizing the Confederate fort at
Drewry's Bluff. As the southern anchor of the union line along the river east of Richmond, it would also have been the first line of defense against the Confederate river fleet moving south for any action against the Union troops along the James River.
On the night of January 24, a Rebel fleet of three ironclads and five
smaller vessels moved south past Fort Brady to attack in concert with a
land assault. Fort Brady took action when the movement was discovered
to prevent the ships from moving downriver.
You can gauge its success by reading this portion of a letter by General
Delavan Bates to his father:
"Fort Brady, however, doesn't amount to much as the rebs have fifteen or twenty guns bearing on it about half or 3/4 of a mile distant, and when they open as they did while the iron clads were passing woe be to the unlucky man that dares to expose himself. The first shot knocked a 100 pounder off its carriage. The next went through the bomb proof killing three men.
"The next hundred pound shell lodged under an officer's log shanty, exploded and you ought to have seen the splinters fly. Lightning striking a tree is no comparison. No one was in at the time and lucky too for if there had been he would have been sent to heaven cross lots.
.... The shelling of Fort Brady was ... perfectly awful...."
The commander of Fort Brady had this to say about the same incident,
in his official report:
"On the night of January 23, 1865, three rams, the wooden gun boat Drewry, a small steam torpedo-boat, and perhaps more, passed Fort Brady about 8 p. m., under cover of the darkness. They received about twenty-five shots from the fort - armament, two 100-pounder Parrotts and three 30-pounder Parrotts. The fort was instantly opened upon by the rebel land batteries, mounting some dozen guns, and their fire soon disabled one of the 100-pounder guns. The fleet passed on to a point near the rebel Howlet Battery, out of range of Fort Brady.
My batteries below Fort Brady were three in number: Parsons and Wilcox
... Spofford ... and Sawyer ..."
No mention of a Battery Abbot in there, and a slightly different
approach to how the fort held up under the shelling.
At the end of the report, the commanding officer signed off:
"HENRY L. ABBOT,
Colonel First Connecticut Artillery, Commanding Siege Artillery"
Ah!
What do we see here? An Abbot!
We are hot on the trail, it seems. No Battery Abbot, but a
commanding officer named Abbot.
The Confederate action ended in failure, with ships running aground
and Union fire too severe for safe operation, so the fleet retreated
eventually back to where it came from.
And now, a further search for Battery Abbot leads us to where all
roads eventually lead on the internet.
To ebay.com
Yes, another search turned up an old stereoscope photograph for print
on Ebay, with the bidding at that moment somewhere around $50.00.
It may interest you, I know it did me.
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