Painting of Drewry's Bluff

This oil painting depicting Drewrys Bluff was done by Conrad Wise Chapman (1842-1910) in 1863 while he served in the Confederate army. Signed, titled, and dated lower left: CWC, Drewrys Bluff, Aug. 27, 1863. Inscription on reverse reads: Drewrys Bluff/for Granville Valentine, Esq. by C.W. Chapman Richmond, Virginia, 1898. Here Chapman tells the story of a Confederate victory. With the fall of Norfolk, the Confederates burned their only ironclad, the Virginia (formerly Merrimac), giving Union forces complete naval supremacy. President Lincoln ordered his apparently unstoppable ships to Richmond to shell the city to surrender. It was at Drewrys Bluff, a few miles below Richmond, that this fleet was turned back. The defenders drove pilings into the river bed and sank several ships. The invading fleet retreated when it could advance no farther and came under heavy shelling from the bluffs. In the year between the battle of 1862 and Chapmans depiction of it, the Confederate complex on the bluff was enlarged and it became a principal post for the Confederate navy without ships. The steeple of the posts new chapel is at the center of the canvas. The pilings, paddlewheel of a steamer, and rigging of a ship were still visible to Chapman as reminders of the humble ingredients of the Confederate victory. Conrad Wise Chapman was the son of John Gadsby Chapman.