This garrison was commanded by Major General Benjamin Butler, a former Massachusetts lawyer and politician, who established a new camp at nearby Hampton and another at Newport News.

Butler took the bait, when he and an aide, Major Theodore Winthrop, devised a plan for a night march, followed by a dawn attack to drive the Confederates back from their bases.

Although Magruder subsequently withdrew to Yorktown and his defensive line along the Warwick River, he had won a propaganda victory, and local Union forces attempted no further significant advance until the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.

[1] Even before secession was formally accomplished, Virginia agreed to coordinate its state military forces with the Confederacy and began to seize federal property.

The fort was supported by the Union Navy at Hampton Roads and could be reinforced and resupplied by water without attack by shore batteries or harassment by the nearly non-existent Virginia or Confederate naval forces.

Colonel Dimick refused to surrender the fort and the small and poorly equipped Virginia (soon to be Confederate) militia forces in the area had no hope of taking the fort by force, especially after April 20, 1861, when the small Union garrison was reinforced by two Massachusetts volunteer regiments within a few days of the Virginia convention voting to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861.

[12] Butler also further occupied and expanded Camp Hamilton, started by Colonel Dimick in the equally lightly defended, adjacent town of Hampton, just beyond the confines of the fort and within the range of its guns.

Montague, and the Richmond Howitzer Artillery Battalion under Major George W. Randolph (grandson of Thomas Jefferson and future Confederate Secretary of War).

Along with his aide, Major Theodore Winthrop,[28] already an accomplished author, Butler devised a plan for a night march and surprise attack on the Confederate position at Little Bethel at dawn by columns converging from Newport News and Hampton.

[30] On the night of June 9–10, according to the plan devised by Butler and Winthrop, 3,500 Union soldiers were sent in two columns from Camp Hamilton at Hampton and Camp Butler at Newport News with orders to converge near the Confederate positions at Little Bethel after a night march and launch a surprise attack on the Confederate positions at Little Bethel at dawn.

[34] The plan was for this force to meet the 3rd New York Infantry under Townsend at a road junction about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Little Bethel and form a combined reserve.

[46] However, Butler's aides, Major Winthrop and Captain Haggerty, urged Peirce to move forward,[46][47] and he chose to continue with the attack.

At least forty men of the 3rd New York Infantry had fled back to the fort at Hampton where they reported that their regiment was being cut to pieces by a large Confederate force.

[44][48] Peirce also soon sent a message back to Hampton for the 2nd New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment under Colonel Joseph B. Carr to come up to the area.

[48] Thinking they had been cut off when they heard the gunfire from the road back to Hampton behind them, Duryée's men of the 5th New York Infantry withdrew from their advanced position and headed south to the sound of the guns, as did the other Union troops from the Vermont and Massachusetts regiments under Lieutenant Colonel Washburn.

[47][52][53] After hearing the gunfire and being alerted by an elderly local lady that a Union force was only a few hundred yards down the road, Magruder hurried his men back to his fortifications at Big Bethel.

The exception was that some of the 3rd Virginia Infantry were in an open field to the south of the branch to protect a howitzer position which was intended to block the main Yorktown–Hampton road.

[55] Having determined to continue to Big Bethel without knowledge of the layout or strength of the Confederate positions, Peirce sent Duryee's 5th New York Infantry out first.

They returned to the main body of the Union force and, after observation and talking to a black man and a local woman as well, told the officers in command that the Confederates had between 3,000 and 5,000 men and 30 pieces of artillery.

[56] Major Randolph, commanding the howitzer battalion, fired a shot at this column which ricocheted through the Union line and killed a soldier standing next to Colonel Bendix.

[65] Magruder did not want to give up the advantageous forward position and sent Stuart back with another howitzer and reinforcements from the 1st North Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Grape shot tore the rectangle off Colonel Duryee's left shoulder, wounded Captain Kilpatrick in the thigh, and killed a soldier behind them.

[73] Though very tired from the night march and increasingly hot day, Winthrop and his force attempted to turn the Confederate left flank (from the Union right).

This effort cost him his life as the Confederate artillery concentrated on his position and he was struck in the back of the head by a cannonball while finally winding up his work.

[82] Total Federal casualties at the Battle of Big Bethel and the friendly fire incident that preceded it were 76, including 18 killed, 53 wounded, and 5 missing.

Butler soon had to return many of his men to Washington to reinforce the defeated Union force after the First Battle of Bull Run as fear for the security of the capital ran high.

Many of the men even wrote to newspapers and others to condemn Peirce's handling of the operation, lack of coordination of forces, sporadic efforts at fighting, wasting of time, and leaving too much discretion to subordinates.

[99] Union morale was correspondingly damaged but as events proved, the Northern public and military showed resilience and determination in the face of several early defeats.

Civilian mobs also were engaged with military forces in two similar riots in St. Louis in the early days of the war after the surrender of Fort Sumter.

A group of local preservationists has developed a plan to preserve areas, currently located on Langley Air Force Base, containing a remnant of an earthwork and the memorial to Henry Lawson Wyatt, the only Confederate soldier killed in the battle.