Tag: Wilcox Landing VA

Wikipedia says: Flowerdew Hundred Plantation dates to 1618/19 with the patent by Sir George Yeardley, the Governor and Captain General of Virginia, of 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the south side of the James River. Yeardley probably named the plantation after his wife’s wealthy father, Anthony Flowerdew, just as he named another plantation “Stanley Hundred” after his wife’s wealthy mother, Martha Stanley.

…The Civil War came to Flowerdew in June 1864 when the Commanding General of the Armies of the United States Ulysses S. Grant ordered his men to cross the James River in an effort to outflank Gen. Robert E. Lee and capture the City of Petersburg and its rail hub that was vital to the Confederate war effort. In support of the Overland Campaign, the Corps of Engineers, in a remarkable feat of construction, built a pontoon bridge across the James in one evening, setting a record for the longest floating bridge ever built. Grant’s Crossing from Weyanoke to Flowerdew (or Wilcox Landing as it was then known) held this record until World War II. The Army of the Potomac with three corps and a supply train crossed the river in about three days heading for City Point to begin the Siege of Petersburg.