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.