The Battle of Gloucester Point, Virginia was the first reported exchange of fire in the American Civil War, following the surrender of Fort Sumter.

On May 7, 1861, Lieutenant Thomas O. Selfridge Jr. commanding the USS Yankee was ordered to reconnoitre the new fortifications at Gloucester Point opposite Yorktown.

On April 15, 1861, the day after the U.S. Army garrison surrendered Fort Sumter to Confederate forces, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion of the seven Deep South Slave states that had formed the Confederate States of America and to reclaim the federal property that had been seized by the Confederacy.

Four Upper South States that permitted slavery, including Virginia, refused to furnish troops for this purpose and immediately began the process of secession from the Union to join the Confederacy.

[3][4] On April 22, 1861, Governor Letcher appointed Robert E. Lee as commander in chief of Virginia’s army and navy forces.

General Lee instructed the colonel to cooperate with Virginia Navy Captain William C. Whittle in the construction and defense of a shore battery to cover the York River at that location.

[6] On May 6, 1861, Taliaferro ordered a company of fifty men of the Richmond Howitzers, a Virginia volunteer artillery regiment, with two six-pounder cannons, to report to Gloucester Point to assist in the defense and operation of the shore battery.

On May 7, 1861,[1] Union Flag Officer Garrett J. Pendergrast ordered Navy Lieutenant Thomas O. Selfridge Jr. to examine the reported fortifications.

[12][13] Lieutenant John Thompson Brown of the Richmond Howitzers was in immediate command of the small force of artillerymen who manned the battery at this time.

[19] The Battle of Gloucester Point can be considered with those subsequent actions as part of the Union campaign to blockade the Chesapeake Bay and the entire coast of the Southern States.