The Seven Days Battles, 1862: how Lee saved Richmond

In the spring of 1862 McClellan landed his Army of the Potomac, more than 100,000 men, at Fort Monroe and fought his way up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers. By mid-May it stood on the outskirts of Richmond. On 31 May the Confederate commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, attacked at Seven Pines and was badly wounded. That night President Jefferson Davis gave his army to Robert E. Lee, a respected engineer who had never commanded an army in the field.²

Lee's plan

Lee believed Richmond could not withstand a siege by the enormous Union army, so he chose to attack. He spent most of June building earthworks around the city, which earned him the mocking nickname "King of Spades", but the defenses had a purpose: a small force could hold them while he took the rest of the army out to fight. McClellan's army needed some 600 to 700 tons of supplies a day, brought up by the Richmond and York River Railroad, and to guard it he had to keep part of his army north of the flooded Chickahominy River and part south of it. Lee meant to fall on the northern wing and the railroad, with Stonewall Jackson's 20,000 men, fresh from the Shenandoah Valley, marching around its flank.³

Oak Grove and Beaver Dam Creek

McClellan struck first. On 25 June, guessing that Lee was up to something, he attacked near Seven Pines in the action called Oak Grove, gained little and pulled back in the evening. The next day Lee's offensive began, and it began badly. Jackson was late, and Lee sent three divisions, about 40,000 men, against Union guns dug in above Beaver Dam Creek near Mechanicsville. The American Battlefield Trust's account puts Confederate losses at more than 1,500 against about 450 Union.⁴

Gaines' Mill

Jackson's approach still did its work, and before dawn on 27 June McClellan's northern wing withdrew to a plateau above Boatswain's Creek. There General Fitz John Porter's 35,000 men waited behind breastworks of felled trees, with artillery along the crest. Lee attacked without maps of any value. Jackson's guide took him down the wrong road, and his men arrived only late in the afternoon. Then Lee ordered a general assault along the whole line. Nearly 95,000 men fought on a front of two miles, and in less than half a day some 15,000 became casualties. The Confederates broke Porter's line, and Gaines' Mill became Lee's first victory.⁵

Retreat to the James

That night the Union army crossed to the south bank of the Chickahominy and gave up the railroad. With no supply line, McClellan could not take another step toward Richmond, and he began moving his army south toward the James River, where navy gunboats and supply ships could protect and feed it. Lee chased him, trying to catch the long Union columns on the march. At Savage's Station on 29 June General Magruder attacked the Union rear guard alone because confused orders kept Jackson north of the river.⁶

The best chance came on 30 June at Glendale, the crossroads the Union army had to pass. Lee converged on it from three directions with nearly 70,000 men, but Jackson made no vigorous attempt to cross White Oak Swamp, and Union artillery stopped another column on the Charles City Road. Only Longstreet and A. P. Hill attacked, for almost six hours, and the Union line held. McClellan himself had ridden south to find a refuge on the James.⁷

Malvern Hill

On 1 July the Union army stood on Malvern Hill, an open, gently sloping plateau above wheat fields, crowned with massed artillery. Lee hoped converging artillery fire would open the way for his infantry, but the Union guns overwhelmed his batteries, and the infantry attacks were cut down. The battle in the sketch above cost Lee about 5,600 men against 2,100 Union, by the Trust's estimates. "It was not war," wrote the Confederate General D. H. Hill, "it was murder".⁸

What the Seven Days changed

McClellan nonetheless kept his army on the James, under the guns of the navy, and gave up the advance on Richmond. The week had cost more than 34,000 casualties, about 19,000 Confederate and 15,000 Union, by the American Battlefield Trust's count. William Miller, writing for the Trust, calls it the first great turning point of the war: a Union army that had seemed about to end the conflict was pushed away from Richmond, and the Confederacy gained a commander who would fight it for almost three more years. The National Park Service adds that with the capital secure, Lee turned north, won at Second Manassas and marched into Maryland, to the bloody check at Antietam.⁹