The Tidewater Watts Family and the Civil War

Did you know that three of Henry Watts’ sons were pressed into “Public Service” by the Confederacy at Craney Island, Norfolk, Virginia in 1861 to fortify the city?

The good news is that our family members were there when the Union Army took back Craney Island from the Confederacy and helped the slaves that came to Craney Island in 1862.

Jennings Watts testified to the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1870 that the family was in support of the Union Cause not the Confedracy.

Read below about the events. The Historical Documents are attached. (Request for Free Negros, Letter to the Sheriff of Norfolk, and the List of Free Nerores)

Civil War

Early in the American Civil War (1861–1865), the important Gosport Shipyard upstream from Craney Island on the Elizabeth River at Portsmouth fell into Confederate hands and the first Confederate ironclad warship, CSS Virginia, was converted from USS Merrimack there. The Confederates built a 20-gun battery on the island and berthed the Virginia there.^[2] This ship fought the first Union ironclad USS Monitor during the famous Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, which was inconclusive as neither armored ship could defeat the other.

Only two months later, as recapture of Norfolk and Portsmouth by Union forces was imminent, on the morning of May 11, 1862, the Virginia was deliberately run aground near Craney Island and burned by the crew to avoid capture.

During the Civil War, the island became a safe haven for many slaves that poured into Norfolk when the city fell to the Union forces in May 1862.