Battle of Eltham's Landing - Civil War Discovery Trail Sites on Waymarking.com

By May 4, 1862, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army was retreating west toward Richmond from Yorktown as Union Gen. George B. McClellan's army followed. McClellan, to accelerate the Federal advance on the Confederate capital and intercept Johnston, shipped half his force up the York River to West Point, the terminus of the Richmond and York Railroad at the junction of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers. Just east of here at Brickhouse Point on the York River, Gen William B. Franklin's division began disembarking on May 6 as Confederate calvary scouts watched from the hills to the south.

By dawn on May 7, a vast array of equipment and thousands of troops had poured into the open fields. The cavalrymen reported the landing to Johnston at Barhamsville, three miles southwest of here. Johnston assigned Gen. Gustavus W. Smith to block the Federal advance, and Smith sent Gen. W.H.C. Whiting's division forward. As Franklin's division began moving south toward Barhamsville, Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood led his Texas brigade north with Col. Wade Hampton's Legion on his right. Together they drove Franklin's skirmish line back toward the river. Whiting soon discovered, however, that his men were within range of Federal gunboats in the York River but that the vessels were out of range of Confederate cannons. About 2 p.m., he disengaged and withdrew to Johnston's main force. The Confederate army and its supply trains continued the retreat to Richmond. Whiting's division had succeeded in delaying Franklin sufficiently for them to escape.