Seven Days, Virginia
June 25-July 1, 1862
Following the Union debacle at Bull Run, General George B. McClellan took command in the east and whipped the army into shape. McClellan’s strength was in organizing, training and planning. After months of preparation, prodded by an impatient President Lincoln, McClellan launched his grand Peninsular Campaign in April 1862. Facing a much larger army moving up river, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston slowed McClellan’s advance in a series of minor battles while gradually pulling his lines back from the Peninsula to tighten the defense of Richmond (see map). By late May, McClellan reached the outskirts of Richmond with an army of 150,000 men. Eight miles east of Richmond, Johnston launched the Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), which took place on May 31-June 1. Johnston was severely wounded and replaced by Robert E. Lee. Each side got about 42,000 men into action; Union casualties were 5,000 and Confederate casualties were 6,100. Following the battle, McClellan moved most of his army to the south side of the Chickahominy River, leaving Fitz-John Porter’s 5th Corps behind as a rearguard. The Seven Days Battle, actually a more or less continuous series of battles from June 26 through July 1, began when Lee tried to cut McClellan off from his base at White House Landing on the Pamunkey River. Stonewall Jackson, arriving from the Shenandoah Valley, was to advance from the north; A. P. Hill was then to attack the Union advance lines at Mechanicsville. Jackson was inexplicably slow and failed to execute his part of Lee’s plan. Hill's troops attacked anyway and were severely repulsed in the battle of Mechanicsville on June 26. Porter then fell back to another strong position at Gaines' Mill. There on June 27, Longstreet, Jackson, A. P. Hill, and D. H. Hill led the Confederates against Porter's greatly outnumbered forces and finally broke the Union resistance. That evening, Porter crossed the river with his shattered corps and joined the bulk of McClellan's army, which had remained inactive. McClellan decided to move his base to the navigable James River in order to add naval support and then posted his army on Malvern Hill, a strong defensive position on the north bank of the James River. In the battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, Union troops repeatedly repulsed the Confederate attacks in some of the hardest fighting of the war. (Lee's 5,500 casualties were more than twice the Union losses.) On the next day, McClellan withdrew to Harrison's Landing and the Peninsular campaign was over. Lee had suffered the heavier losses (20,000 compared to 16,000) and failed to cripple McClellan's retreating army, but his aggressive tactics saved Richmond. For his part, McClellan's army had won every battle of the Peninsula Campaign except one (Gaines' Mill), but he turned victory into defeat.
© 2004 David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College
