The Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War was a
major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia from March
through July 1862, the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern
Theater. The operation, commanded by Major General George
McClellan, was an amphibious turning movement intended to capture
Richmond (the Confederate capital) by circumventing the Confederate
Army in northern Virginia. McClellan was initially successful
against the equally cautious General Joseph E. Johnston, but the
emergence of General Robert E. Lee changed the character of the
campaign and turned it into a humiliating Union defeat.
The Seven Days’ Battles was a series of six major battles
over the seven days from June 25 to July 1, 1862, near Richmond,
Virginia, in the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E.
Lee drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by
Major General George B. McClellan, away from Richmond and into a
retreat down the Virginia Peninsula. The series of battles is
sometimes known erroneously as the Seven Days’ Campaign, but
it was actually the culmination of the Peninsula Campaign, not a
separate campaign in its own right.
Spring 1862 was a dark time for the Confederacy. Defeats had
come on the Mississippi River, in Tennessee and along the North
Carolina coast. A powerful Union army was poised outside
Washington, ready to strike a blow against Richmond, the
confederate capital. The events which took place that Spring along
the rivers, swamps and fields of the Virginia Peninsula were
initiated to do just that; capture Richmond and end the war.
The Peninsula Campaign was the strategic concept of Union Army
Commander-in-Chief Major General George B. McClellan. By advancing
up the Peninsula, McClellan would avoid suffering the high
casualties caused by a march south on Richmond from northern
Virginia. The powerful Union navy could first transport McClellans
army to the Peninsula, then, using the James and York rivers,
protect that army’s flanks as it advanced toward Richmond. It was
an excellent plan and McClellan’s army seemed unstoppable. Yet,
despite all these advantages, he failed to achieve his goals.
Major General Benjamin
Franklin Butler was the first Union commander to recognize the
strategic importance of the Virginia Peninsula. His defeat
during the June 10, 1861, Battle of Big Bethel ended Butler’s
feeble effort to capture Richmond via the Peninsula.
McClellan, however, viewed the Peninsula as his second choice.
His initial plan was an advance against Richmond by way of
Urbanna on the Rappahannock River. This would have placed the
Union army behind General Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate
army then positioned in northern Virginia. When Johnston
withdrew further south from the Manassas Line on March 8,
1862, McClellan had to scrap his original plan and select his
second alternative, the Peninsula. McClellan believed that by
using Fort Monroe as a base, he could march against Richmond
“with security, altho’ with less celebrity and brilliancy of
results, up the Peninsula.”
In early March 1862, McClellan found himself under considerable
political pressure to launch some advance against Richmond. Even as
he shared the merits of his plan with President Abraham Lincoln, it
started to unhinge. The emergence of the ironclad ram CSS
Virginia (the captured and refitted USS Merrimack) on
March 8, 1862, sent shock waves through the Union command. In one
day, the Virginia destroyed two Union warships, the USS
Congress and USS Cumberland, threatening Federal
control of Hampton Roads. A strategic balance was quickly gained
when the novel Union ironclad USS Monitor arrived and fought
the Virginia to a standstill the next day. While both sides
claimed victory, the Virginia’s presence denied the James
River to Federal use.
Confident that the
Monitor could hold off any advance against his
transports by the Confederate ironclad, McClellan proceeded
with his campaign. He began shipping his 121,500-strong army
with all of its supplies and armaments to Fort Monroe on March
17, 1862, intending to move against Richmond by way of the
York River.
On
April 4, 1862, McClellan’s army began its march up the
Peninsula. The next day the Army of the Potomac found its path
to Richmond slowed at first by heavy rains and then blocked by
Confederate Major General John Bankhead Magruder’s
13,000-strong “Army of the Peninsula.” Since his June 1861
victory at Big Bethel, Magruder had constructed three
defensive lines across the Peninsula. The most formidable of
these lines was the second, a line which stretched from
Yorktown, along the Warwick River, to the James River. As
McClellan carefully surveyed the extensive Confederate
fortifications, “Prince John” Magruder paraded his troops
along the earthworks, deluding the Union commander into
believing he was outnumbered.
The events of April 5 changed McClellan’s campaign. Not only
were his plans for a rapid movement past Yorktown upset by the
unexpected Confederate defenses along the Warwick River, but also
by Lincoln’s decision not to release General Irwin McDowell’s I
Corps from northern Virginia to use in a flanking movement against
the Confederate batteries at Gloucester Point. The U. S. Navy, too,
refused to attempt any offensive action in the York River. Flag
Officer Louis Goldsborough feared that the CSS Virginia
might attack the Union fleet while it attempted to silence the
Confederate guns at Yorktown and Gloucester Point. Since
McClellan’s reconnaissance, provided by detective Alan Pinkerton
and Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s balloons, confirmed his belief that
he was outnumbered by the Confederates, the Union commander thought
that he had no choice but to besiege the Confederate defenses.
As his men built gun
emplacements for the 103 siege guns McClellan had brought to
the Peninsula, General Joseph E. Johnston moved his entire
Confederate army down to the lower Peninsula from his camps in
northern Virginia. Johnston believed that the Confederate
position was weak, noting that, “No one but McClellan could
have hesitated to attack.” McClellan’s men did make one
attempt to break the Confederate Warwick-Yorktown Line.
Brigadier General William F. “Baldy” Smith sent elements of
the Vermont Brigade across the Warwick River to disrupt
Confederate control of Dam No. 1. The poorly coordinated
assaults on April 16, 1862, failed to break through the
vulnerable Confederate target.
The siege continued another two weeks even though Johnston
counselled retreat. Johnston advised that “the fight for Yorktown
must be one of artillery, in which we cannot win.” Finally, just as
McClellan made his last preparations to unleash his heavy
bombardment on the Confederate lines, Johnston abandoned the
Warwick-Yorktown Line on May 3.
McClellan was surprised by the Confederate withdrawal. The Union
commander attempted to cut off Johnston’s retreat, ordering
Brigadier General Edwin V. “Bull” Sumner to attack the Confederate
rear guard. The result was the bloody, indecisive May 5 Battle of
Williamsburg. Fighting raged in front of Fort Magruder until dark,
but it was Brigadier General Winfield Scott Hancock’s flanking move
into several unmanned redoubts on the Confederate left which forced
the Southerners to abandon the Williamsburg Line.
McClellan did not arrive on the battlefield until dark, as the
engagement was ending. He had been in Yorktown, supervising the
embarkation of Brigadier General William B. Franklin’s division
onto transports. Franklin rushed up the York River to block
Johnston’s withdrawal to Richmond. Although able to secure a
beachhead at Eltham’s Landing on May 6, Franklin moved inland
timidly. There Franklin was blocked by John Bell Hood’s Texans and
Johnston made his escape.
President Lincoln, concerned by what
he deemed McClellan’s general lack of initiative, arrived at
Fort Monroe on May 6. Two days later, the President supervised
the Union’s unsuccessful naval attack against Norfolk. Across
the Elizabeth River from Norfolk was Portsmouth’s Gosport Navy
Yard. Gosport was the largest naval base and shipyard in the
Confederacy and served as the Virginia’s home port. The
Confederate retreat from the lower Peninsula had forced Major
General Benjamin Huger to abandon Norfolk on May 9. Without
its base and unable to steam up the James River to Richmond
because of its deep draught, the Virginia was destroyed
by its crew on May 11, 1862. The door to the Confederate
capital via the James River now lay open. A Union fleet, moved
up the river and approached within seven miles of Richmond. On
May 15, 1862, Confederate batteries atop Drewry’s Bluff
repulsed the Federal advance.
As McClellan’s army neared the outskirts of the Confederate
capital by the end of May, he extended his right to meet expected
reinforcements from Northern Virginia. In the meantime, “Stonewall”
Jackson’s successful operations in the Shenandoah Valley prompted
Lincoln to continue to hold these reinforcements around
Fredericksburg to help protect Washington from any Confederate
advance. McClellan now found his army divided by the swampy
Chickahominy River.
Confederate commander Joe Johnston was under pressure from
Confederate President Jefferson Davis to do something about the
approaching Federals. Taking advantage of heavy rains which had
made the Chickahominy nearly impassable, Johnston attacked
McClellan’s army south of the river around the villages of Seven
Pines and Fair Oaks. The poorly coordinated assaults on May 31
failed and Johnston was seriously wounded. The next day, June 1,
1862, the battle continued, but Robert E. Lee, who assumed command
of the Confederate forces around Richmond, ordered a withdrawal
that afternoon.
Lee, formerly Jefferson
Davis’ Military Advisor, now readied the Confederate army for
an offensive strike against McClellan. In preparation for his
attack against the Union army, Lee ordered Brigadier General
J. E. B. Stuart to reconnoiter the Army of the Potomac’s right
flank. Stuart discovered that the Union flank was exposed, but
he exceeded his instructions and rode completely around the
Federal army. It was a spectacular maneuver which,
unfortunately for the Confederates, alerted McClellan to his
weak position, thereby facilitating McClellan’s eventual
change of base to Harrison’s Landing on the James River.
Lee’s offensive, called the Seven Days’ Battles, began on
June 25, 1862, when elements of the Union army advanced against
Lee’s Confederates south of the Chickahominy. Lee, after ordering
Jackson’s Valley command to Richmond, unleashed his combined forces
against an exposed Union corps above the Chickahominy near
Mechanicsville. The June 26 attack, called the Battle of Beaver Dam
Creek, began a series of engagements which forced McClellan to
retreat across the Peninsula to the James River. The Seven Days’
Battles ended on July 1, 1862, when the Union army repulsed several
bloody and uncoordinated Confederate assaults at Malvern Hill.
McClellan’s army reached safety at Harrison’s Landing, but Lee’s
offensive, although costly in men, achieved its objective --
Richmond was saved.
Despite all his advantages, McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign ended
in failure. Richmond’s redemption provided hope for the young
Confederacy, particularly after a series of recent defeats in the
West. In the Spring of 1862, McClellan had a tremendous
opportunity. If he had pressed on Richmond and captured the
Confederate capital, McClellan might have won the war and our
history might well have taken a very different course. Instead, the
Civil War lasted for three more bloody years.
Chickahominy Bluff
Richmond National Battlefield Park hours are sunrise to
sunset.
On this ridge overlooking the Chickahominy River, General Lee,
President Davis, and many other prominent Confederate officers
gathered to await the start of the operations that came to be
called the Seven Days’ Battles. They expected “Stonewall” Jackson’s
20,000-man army to get behind the Union position near
Mechanicsville, to force the Federal Fifth Corps out of its
defenses. General A.P. Hill then would clear the river crossings,
allowing the bulk of Lee’s army to unite with Jackson and threaten
the Richmond & York River Railroad, then in use as the main
Union supply line.
Unanticipated obstacles delayed Jackson, and late on the
afternoon of June 26, 1862, Hill forced a crossing two miles
upriver from here and captured Mechanicsville. Hill’s success
allowed Lee to transfer the troops assembled here at Chickahominy
Bluff over to the northern bank of the river. Shortly before
sunset, fragments of the Confederate army launched attacks just
east of Mechanicsville at the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek, two miles
from here.
This is the first stop on an extensive driving tour that mirrors
the movements of the armies in the Seven Days’ Battles. From here,
you can drive across the Chickahominy River at the same spot where
Lee and his divisions marched over late in the afternoon of June
26. Passing the little town of Mechanicsville, you will come to
Beaver Dam Creek, followed by the rest of the Seven Days’
battlefields. Most of the driving tour is on historic roads and
follows the routes used by the contending armies in one of the most
elaborate and complex campaigns of the Civil War.
The northern coordinates can be found on the sign overlooking
the bluffs and labeled The Seven Days Begin. “General Robert
E. Lee orders his men to strengthen the city’s defensive
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Beaver Dam Creek
Richmond National Battlefield Park hours are sunrise to
sunset.
General Robert E. Lee’s plan on June 26, 1862 did not anticipate
a direct assault on the Union position here at Beaver Dam Creek. He
hoped to maneuver instead of force to drive Fitz John Porter’s
troops away from their powerful entrenchments. But Lee’s carefully
crafted plan fell apart. Poor coordination among his various
columns caused delays. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s 20,000
men were not able to get into position north of here, above Beaver
Dam Creek, before sunset. With most of his Confederate army on his
side of the Chickahominy River, Lee worried about the safety of
Richmond, where only 25,000 of his soldiers manned the
fortifications, facing about 75,000 Union soldiers.
Fearful that McClellan might hurl the bulk of his army directly
at Richmond, Lee determined to engage Porter at Beaver Dam Creek.
The resulting action proved to be a costly diversion. Today the
creek at this spot is much wider and swampier than in 1862, and
heavy woods obscure the lofty ridge occupied by Porter’s men on the
eastern side of the stream.
The national park preserves battlefield ground occupied by
soldiers from both armies. Take the footbridge over Beaver Dam
Creek and learn about the heaviest fighting of the battle. The
bridge crosses the creek at the same spot as the 1862 bridge. Along
the way signs help to illustrate the strength of the Union
position. The entire walk is only one-quarter mile long.
The western coordinates can be found on the sign beyond the
bridge and labeled The Pennsylvanians Stand Firm. “(The
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