Free Virginia Beach lighthouse weekend events

VIRGINIA BEACH

This weekend area residents can see a bit of Civil War history unfold during a re-enactment to mark the conflict’s 150th anniversary. The free event will take place at the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse on the Fort Story campus of the Joint Expeditionary Base, and there locals will learn about the early April 1861 attack on the lighthouse.

The history of Cape Henry is well-known to most locals.

In 1607, its sandy shore served as the original landing site for the English expedition and is where they first planted their cross before going on to establish Jamestown.

But local experts recently discovered this isn’t the only bit of American history that occurred on the site.

A few years ago Virginia Beach historians began researching another event at the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse. Colette Amici, First Landing Heritage Foundation chief executive, said the incident was referred to in correspondence dating to the 1860s.

“There is not a lot written about it,” she said, referring to the April 1861 event. Both Amici and local historian Fielding Tyler spent the past few years piecing the various accounts together. What they discovered is an incident they refer to as the Civil War Skirmish at Cape Henry Light. 

"Several days before Fort Sumter was attacked,” in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, “Confederate militia put out the Cape Henry light so it couldn’t be used as a navigational aid,” Amici said. Local militia destroyed the lighthouse’s lamps to prevent the signal from guiding Union ships into Chesapeake Bay, she added. 

“And then they left. The lighthouse keeper was there.”

At this weekend's event, Tyler will portray John Henry Drew, the assistant keeper who served during part of the Civil War, although he was not the lighthouse keeper who witnessed the event. Amici and Tyler were unable to find out the name of the keeper who saw the attack because he was not named in any correspondence relating to it.

But they have discovered a few other interesting facts.

They learned that in response to the skirmish at Cape Henry, Union troops were soon posted to the site to further guard the station.

Tyler said they also found out that the Confederate militia that carried out the assault was just a bunch of ex-farmers from Princess Anne County.

It was that would-be early militia unit, Tyler added, that knocked out the light.

“And then later on in the war, they repaired it,” he said.

The signal was approved for construction in 1791, shortly after the American Revolution. Tyler said it was critical to navigation and was built on the highest sand dune at the cape.

“The lighthouse was the only aid to navigation coming around Cape Henry,” Tyler said, “so these guys were dependent upon that light to guide them into Hampton Roads.”