
DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130520

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ERIKA REIF 

DATELINE: CHARLES CITY                      LENGTH:  113 lines

PRESERVING A HARD-WON VICTORY HISTORY FORGOT THESE SOLDIERS, BUT A PRESIDENT'S GRANDSON HASN'T.

The grandson of a U.S. president is filling in the gaps of Civil War history by unearthing a fort and the details of a nearly forgotten victory there by black Union troops.

On May 24, 1864, greatly outnumbered U.S. Colored Troops under Gen. Edward A. Wild fought off a Confederate attack led by Gen. Robert E. Lee's nephew, Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. In the battle, about 1,100 black soldiers, supported by a few white soldiers manning two cannons, repulsed 2,500 Confederate cavalrymen.

One historic document states that the Confederates had about 125 casualties, while the Union army had only 26. However, other historians say the Confederate losses may have been understated.

The victory kept Fort Pocahontas and navigation of the James River in the North's control. But the battle is rarely mentioned in Civil War history.

Now, Harrison Tyler, 69, grandson of 10th U.S. president John Tyler, who supported Virginia leaving the union, is putting the battle site back on the map. Tyler bought the 15-acre Fort Pocahontas last year and has been funding research and archaeological digs there.

On Wednesday, two plaques commemorating the battle at Fort Pocahontas and the wharf, known as Kennon's Landing, were unveiled along Route 5, between Williamsburg and Richmond.

``It is a national landmark and it will be preserved,'' Tyler said.

The fort is near his home, Sherwood Forest Plantation, where his presidential grandfather lived. Tyler remembers picking musket minie balls off the hilly ground there as a child, but ``I never thought of it as any more than there were some soldiers here and they dug a trench.''

Tyler said he decided to buy the land from a private developer after he got a call from Edwin W. Besch, a historian from Mobile, Ala.

Besch, a former Virginia resident and retired Marine captain, had researched documents pertaining to the fort and found out black Union troops fought an important battle there.

``This is possibly the largest single victory won by nearly all black soldiers,'' Besch said. In most other battles involving black troops, they fought alongside white troops, and black troops had been criticized at the time as not being capable of fighting on their own, he said.

The Union probably never did much to herald the victory, Besch said, because Brig. Gen. Edward A. Wild didn't get along well with his superiors and later was court-martialed for ordering a rebel slavemaster to be tied up and whipped by his own slaves.

Archaeology students from the College of William and Mary have been digging at the fort since spring. Outside the dirt walls is evidence of graves of Union soldiers, whose bodies were later moved to a Richmond cemetery, and possibly a mass Confederate grave.

Graduate student Paul M. Nasca, who is directing the fieldwork, said they have discovered rifle and pistol bullets, a pharmaceutical bottle, bits of stemware and stoneware, a key and knapsack hardware. There were probably two structures within the walls, and one may have been Wild's headquarters, he said.

There is also evidence of an untouched encampment site outside the walls. ``We have an area frozen in time of Civil War daily life,'' Nasca said. ``It's also the daily life of black soldiers.''

Questions remain about how black soldiers were treated compared to white soldiers, and how their daily lives reflected those differences, Nasca said. Examining the site could provide some answers.

``It may say `yes' or `no' in the documentation, but the archeology will speak for itself,'' he said.

Tyler, who plans a re-enactment of the action at Fort Pocahontas on its May 24 anniversary, has a letter written by a soldier from the Ohio National Guard troops that replaced the black units at Fort Pocahontas.

``This point was taken by our men from the Rebs some four weeks ago and there is no dout they would like to have it back again,'' wrote Capt. A.R. Arter, Co. C, 143rd Regiment, on June 23, 1864.

The soldier then revealed how the home of President Tyler, a Confederate supporter, was treated by the invaders.

``A lot of the boys went out yesterday and broke into President Tyler's house and took and destroyed lots of stuff . . . our men shows the rebs . . . no mercy take everything,'' he bragged.

He described items looted from the Tyler home: ``very nice furniture, looking glasses, carpeting of the very costliest kind;'' and the destruction of a piano and large mirror.

When the soldier mentions blacks, it is in reference to ``darkies'' he hopes to take home to put in service for himself. He doesn't mention that the recent victory he and his comrades were capitalizing on was based on a victory by black combat units.

Charles City resident Virginia Alves, 57, hopes to correct such historical omissions. Alves' grandfather, Robert W. Brown, was in the black infantry that fought in the battle.

Alves was born and raised in Charles City, moved away and returned in 1993. She volunteers at the Charles City History Center, but had never heard about the action of black troops, although ``it was quite a battle, evidently.''

Her grandfather, born in Charles City in 1846, joined Union forces at about age 15, Alves said. At 46, he married a teen-aged woman, whom Alves remembers receiving a widow's pension from her grandfather's military service.

``It makes me feel proud that my grandfather was here to fight and that we are finally finding out that the colored troops did do their share in the war,'' Alves said. ``They were able to fight.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MOTOYA NAKAMURA PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot

Harrison Tyler, center, bought the 15 acres where Fort Pocahontas

once stood, and has been funding archaeological research at the

Civil War site. He dedicated historical markers at the Charles City

site Wednesday, joined by Patty Gunk, left, and T. Joseph Funk, in

period costumes. The fort is near his home, which also belonged to

his grandfather, President John Tyler.

Color Photo

The new plaques commemorate outnumbered U.S. black troops who held

back Confederate soldiers and held the fort and the James River for

the Union.

Virginia Alves, granddaughter of a Union soldier, grew up in Charles