Nansemond River Light

The Battle of Pig Point, Virginia was an early naval battle of the American Civil War, after Lincoln had extended the Union blockade to include Virginia. On June 5, 1861, the Union gunboat USRC Harriet Lane under Captain John Faunce was ordered to attack Pig Point, but due to shallow water, the shots fell short, and the Union suffered five men wounded before withdrawing.

The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows 348 miles (560 km) to the Chesapeake Bay. The river length extends to 444 miles (715 km) if the Jackson River is included, the longer of its two headwaters. It is the longest river in Virginia. Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia's first colonial capitals, and Richmond, Virginia's current capital, lie on the James River.

The Nansemond River is a 19.8-mile-long (31.9 km) tributary of the James River in Virginia in the United States. Virginian colonists named the river for the Nansemond tribe of Native Americans, who had long inhabited the area. They continue as a federally recognized tribe in Virginia. The river begins at the outlet of Lake Meade north of downtown Suffolk, which had historically marked the northern boundary of the city. The Nansemond River Light once signaled the river's confluence with the James. The Nansemond River Bridge, once a toll bridge and part of U.S. Route 17, crosses the river near its mouth. Two other bridges cross the river, one from downtown Suffolk and one on Route 58. The Nansemond National Wildlife Refuge is located along the river.

Knotts Creek is a 3.0-mile-long (4.8 km) tidal inlet on the south shore of the Nansemond River in the city of Suffolk, Virginia, in the United States.

"Tidewater" is a term for the north Atlantic Plain region of the United States.

Hoffler Creek is a 2.1-mile-long (3.4 km) tidal inlet of the James River on its southern side in Hampton Roads. It forms the boundary between the cities of Portsmouth and Suffolk, Virginia. The mouth of the creek is between the Nansemond River to the west and Craney Island to the east. Normally a tranquil salt marsh, the estuary can change dramatically with tide, wind and rain. In 2003, Hurricane Isabel caused significant flooding into yards abutting the creek. Less dramatic flooding occurs with Nor'easter storms, which often last several days.

Chuckatuck Creek is a 13.3-mile-long (21.4 km) tributary of the James River in the U.S. state of Virginia. The creek rises in Isle of Wight County and flows southeast to Chuckatuck in the city of Suffolk, where it turns northeast as it passes under State Route 10/State Route 32. Becoming tidal, the creek continues northeast to the mouth of Brewers Creek, where it broadens considerably and becomes the boundary between Isle of Wight County and the city of Suffolk. If proceeds under the Crittenden Bridge (U.S. Route 17) at Crittenden and reaches the James River at Batten Bay.

The first USS Cumberland was a 50-gun sailing frigate of the United States Navy. She was the first ship sunk by the ironclad CSS Virginia. Cumberland began in the pages of a Congressional Act. Congress passed in 1816 "An act for the gradual increase of the Navy of the United States." The act called for the U.S. to build several ships-of-the-line and several new frigates, of which Cumberland was to be one. Money issues, however, prevented Cumberland from being finished in a timely manner. It was not until Secretary of the Navy Abel Parker Upshur came to office that the ship was finished. A war scare with Britain led Upshur to order the completion of several wooden sailing ships and for the construction of new steam powered ships. Designed by famed American designer William Doughty, Cumberland was one a series of frigates in a class called the Raritan-class. The design borrowed heavily from older American frigate designs such as Constitution and Chesapeake. Specifically, Doughty liked the idea of giving a frigate more guns than European designs called for. As a result, he called for Cumberland and her sister ships to have a fully armed spar deck, along with guns on the gun deck. The result was a heavily armed, 50-gun warship.

The Monitor–Merrimac Memorial Bridge–Tunnel (MMMBT) is the 4.6-mile-long (7.4 km) Hampton Roads crossing for Interstate 664 (I-664) in the southeastern portion of Virginia in the United States. It is a four-lane bridge–tunnel composed of bridges, trestles, artificial islands, and tunnels under a portion of the Hampton Roads harbor where the mouths of the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers come together. It connects the independent cities of Newport News on the Virginia Peninsula and Suffolk in South Hampton Roads and is part of the Hampton Roads Beltway, a circumferential Interstate Highway which links the seven largest cities of Hampton Roads. The MMMBT, completed in 1992, provided a third major vehicle crossing of the Hampton Roads harbor area, supplementing the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel which carries I-64 between the independent cities of Hampton and Norfolk (1957), and the James River Bridge connecting the independent city of Newport News and Isle of Wight County in the South Hampton Roads region (1928). All three facilities are toll-free. The MMMBT cost $400 million to build, and it includes a four-lane tunnel that is 4,800 feet (1,500 m) long, two artificial portal islands, and 3.2 miles (5.1 km) of twin trestle.

The Nansemond River Bridge, officially the Mills E. Godwin Bridge, is located in the independent city of Suffolk, Virginia and carries U.S. Route 17 across the Nansemond River. The current bridge, opened in 1982, was named in honor of former Virginia governor Mills E. Godwin Jr., a prominent member of the Chuckatuck community. The 1982 structure replaced an earlier one built in 1928 by the James River Bridge Corporation as part of a three-bridge system privately funded to be paid for through toll revenues. The others were the original James River Bridge and the Crittenden Bridge (also known as the Chuckatuck Creek Bridge), each of which was also replaced with newer structures during the last quarter of the 20th century.