FOX
HILL HISTORICAL SOCIETY
HAMPTON,
VIRGINIA
HISTORICAL
EVENT
APRIL
12, 2003
In
pursuit of Fox Hill history, the program will observe Confederate History Month
by acknowledging and honoring our Civil War veterans (Southern and Northern).
Gloria
Rogers will perform a first person enactment of a concerned, Hampton, citizen,
Hannah Nichols Tunnell, who alerted General John B. Magruder and his men that
the Yankees were coming. The Battle of Big Bethel was the first land Virginia
Battle of the Civil War.
How
on that fateful day, 10 June 1861, she alerted General John B. Magruder that the
Yankees were coming. Thus began the first land battle of the Civil War, Big
Bethel here on the Virginia Peninsula with the men of the 32nd Virginia.
Following
her enactment there will be a ceremony at the Wallace/Johnson Cemetery and
placement of the Confederate Iron Cross on Samuel Robert Johnson 'Dipper's'
grave. 'Dipper' served the entire
war in the 32nd Virginia. He was
pardoned at Appomattox when General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Family tradition
is that he not only served in the infantry but also was the groom for Traveler,
General Robert E. Lee's horse.
A second Iron Cross
will be placed on John Saunders Wyatt's grave in Clark Cemetery.
He served in the 115th Virginia Militia.
Before the war, he was master of the schooner "Perserverence"
which was captured and burned by the Yankees.
These
men are typical of Fox Hill's hard working waterman whose families stayed in Fox
Hill during the war and struggled with the day to day hardships of living in an
occupied land that was visited frequently by raiding parties from Fort Monroe.
The
ceremony will be presented and conducted by members of the Ewell/Magruder Camp
SCV. In addition, members of of the 185th Bethel Chapter of the UDC will
participate. Some will dress in period
costumes.