The Battle of Sewell's Point was an inconclusive exchange of cannon fire between the Union gunboat USS Monticello, supported by the USS Thomas Freeborn, and Confederate batteries on Sewell's Point that took place on May 18, 19 and 21, 1861, in Norfolk County, Virginia in the early days of the American Civil War. Little damage was done to either side. By the end of April 1861, USS Cumberland and a small number of supporting ships were enforcing the Union blockade of the southeastern Virginia ports at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay and had captured several ships which attempted to pass the blockade. USS Monticello's bombardment of the Sewell's Point battery was one of the earliest Union Navy actions against Confederate forces during the Civil War. While it has been suggested by some sources that the Monticello's action may have been the first gunfire by the Union Navy during the Civil War, a brief exchange of cannon fire between the U.S. gunboat USS Yankee and shore batteries manned by Virginia volunteer forces which had not yet been incorporated into the Confederate States Army at Gloucester Point, Virginia on the York River occurred on May 7, 1861. Background Although providing for a vote on May 23, 1861, the Virginia state convention voted for and effectively accomplished the secession of that state from the Union on April 17, 1861, which was three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces and two days after President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to reclaim federal property and to suppress the rebellion. During the night of April 20, 1861, the Commander of the U. S. Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk County, Virginia (now the Norfolk Naval Yard in the City of Portsmouth, Virginia) Charles S. McCauley, fearing he could not hold the yard against the rebels and although without instructions from authorities in Washington, D.C., ordered the evacuation and burning of the yard and any ships that could not be sailed away, including the . This ended the presence of Union land forces in the Norfolk area of south Hampton Roads for over one year. On April 27, 1861, President Lincoln ordered the Union blockade of the Confederacy extended to the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina, which were already in the process of joining the Confederate States of America although they did not officially do so until May 1861. Virginia Militia