Fort Crawford (Va.)-- Part 2: Evacuated With McClellan's Approach and the Stolen Commission

From various sources.

Confederates under Gen. John B. Magruder fortified the James River shore to deter Union ships from proceeding upriver and attacking Richmond.

In 1861 they built Fort Crawford on Mulberry Island and it was abandoned a year later as Union Gen. McClellan and his 125,000 troops approached.

One of the families on the island were the Greens.  Their son Bennett Green had become a surgeon in the Confederate Navy.  Homes left abandoned by Southerners on the island were ransacked by Union troops.  One man found Bennett's commission and took it as a souvenir, but years later returned it to the Green family.

--Old Secesh