Prince William County officials are planning to restore a lost Civil War treasure on the Potomac River.
Cockpit Point, one of the largest and most influential gun batteries of the Confederate Army in 1861 and 1862, sits almost 50 feet in the air and protrudes into the river off the Cherry Hill Peninsula. The positioning allowed the rebels to effectively halt all river transportation and delivery of supplies to the Union’s capital in Washington, according to a letter written by Lewis McKenzie, the Union mayor of Alexandria in 1861.
Nine-inch Rodman’s or Columbiad’s, 36-pounder Dahlgren’s and numerous field guns, including iron rifled 12-pounders from Richmond’s Tredegar Ironworks helped to arm the battery that could fire on an enemy vessel for at least an hour, historians say. The position had support from Freestone Point to the north and Shipping Point to the south.
Once the freight tracks were laid near the eastern shore of the county, they effectively cut off the site from the public and left the earthworks and grounds undisturbed, said Brendon Hanafin, director of the county’s historic preservation division.
“A number of gun pits are still in place that are big craters in the ground. … Some of the camps that supported the battery, you can see hut sites and where the chimneys would have been,” said Hanafin, who plans to open the site to public tours once archaeological research is completed.
The site was acquired by KSI, the developer constructing the nearly 2,000-acre Harbor Station property on the Cherry Hill Pennisula. As part of the development deal with the county, KSI is turning over the battery, as well as some 80 acres of natural hardwood forest to the west and a pond, to Prince William, said Edward Byrne, KSI’s senior vice president of community planning and development.
KSI, the county and the adjacent property owner are still working out how pedestrians can access the property, Byrne said.
“I — and a lot of other residents — were not aware of the site and its historical significance until recently,” said Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors. Stewart said the public will not be allowed on the site unsupervised “until we do some digging.”
