Military Bridge, Across the Chickahominy, VA

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            Otherwise known by the name of its builder, and marked on the map, "Woodbury's Bridge." The picture is taken at a point where the accumulated waters most presented the character of a stream; the swamp being in some places all of a mile in width, and supporting on its treacherous surface a luxurious growth. In the depths of this morass, the home of almost every variety of Virginia reptiles, the soldiers worked several weeks, constructing the causeways known as New, Duane's, Sumner's-Upper and Lower-Bottom's, and Railroad Bridges. The cutting of dams above, and heavy rains, stopped the workmen a number of times, and destroyed their labor, by converting the whole valley into a broad lake, whose waters, pressing through the length of the swamp carried everything irresistibly before them. In this way, during the battle of Fair Oaks, Sumner's troops had barely passed over, when the rapidly accumulated waters of the river carried away the bridge; and the engineers claimed that the weight of the men in crossing kept it in its place. If, in that fight, our troops had been defeated, the limited facilities of re-crossing the Chickahominy would probably have led to the capture of the greater portion of the corps.

Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War - Plate 17