Encircling the Union Army: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride Around McClellan During the Peninsula Campaign, June 1862

By Edwin C. Bearrs

Jeb Stuart’s bold and unauthorized ride around the enemy in June 1862 is still studied and celebrated as one of history’s most daring intelligence raids. By late May 1862, Gen. George B. McClellan had moved his massive Army of the Potomac to the outskirts of the Confederate capital at Richmond. When Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston fell wounded at Seven Pines on May 31, Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia and turned the tide of war in the Eastern Theater.

Lee ordered his dashing cavalry leader Jeb Stuart and 1,200 troopers to find the position of McClellan’s right flank. The cavalryman easily discovered the Union flank but continued riding around the enemy in a daring display far exceeding Lee’s intention. The gray-clad mounted troops harassed supply lines and captured enemy troops while covering some 100 miles pursued by Union cavalry led by Stuart’s father-in-law, Gen. Philip St. George Cooke. Stuart’s expedition ended when he returned toRichmond on June 15 with invaluable information that helped General Lee finalize plans for a major offensive operation that triggered the Seven Days’ Battles and eventually defeated and drove McClellan and his army away from Richmond.
Original photos, illustrations, and maps

• Language: English
• Publisher: Savas Publishing
• Release date: Sep 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781940669014

Edwin C. Bearrs

Edwin C. Bearss is a world-renowned military historian, author, and tour guide known for his work on the American Civil War and World War II. Ed, a former WWII Marine wounded in the Pacific Theater, served as Chief Historian of the National Park Service from 1981 to 1994 and is the author of dozens of books and articles. He discovered and helped raise the Union warship USS Cairo, which is on display at Vicksburg National Military Park.

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PART 1

A DESPERATE VENTURE BEGINS

The afternoon of June 1, 1862, was an important hour in the history of our nation. On that date, Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed command of the dispirited and battered Confederate divisions that returned to the camps and staging areas whence they had confidently marched on the night of May 30. In the ensuing hours, they had fought on the eastern approaches to Richmond the battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) against Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s 100,000-man Army of the Potomac. The battle initially went well for the Confederates, despite delays and errors by senior generals. But the arrival of Union reinforcements and the wounding of Confederate commander Joseph E. Johnston at dusk on May 31 had checked the Southern advantage. Johnston’s successor—Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith—lost his nerve, and, when the Confederates botched an attack on the morning of June 1, he called off the battle, which had already cost the South more than 6,000 casualties. Smith withdrew, and the cautious McClellan did not accept the challenge to follow up his soldiers’ success.

General Lee, in his first days as commander of what on June 1 he designated the Army of Northern Virginia, acted to restore morale and to assess the character of his senior officers and their troops. He also acted to ascertain the enemy’s order of battle, strength and intentions. Lee’s soldiers, with pick and shovel, threw up earthworks on the eastern approaches to Richmond, while Union pickets on the Williamsburg Road six miles from the Confederate capital listened to the city’s church bells.

Lee established his headquarters close to the front at the Mary C. Dabbs House, on Nine Mile Road. Although he made daily reconnaissances of the Union lines, Lee encouraged his subordinates to express themselves about the strategic situation and listened intently to the advice of his junior officers at headquarters meetings. Throughout these days of adjustment to his new command, however, Lee kept his plans to himself.¹

Among the subordinates who urged Lee to boldly seize the initiative was his chief of cavalry, Brig. Gen. James Ewell Brown Stuart, known throughout the army as Jeb. On June 4, Stuart penned a letter to Lee concerning the strategic situation. Introducing his subject, Stuart wrote: The present imperilled condition of the Nation, I presume, will be sufficient apology for putting forth for your consideration, convictions derived from a close observation of the enemy’s movements for months past, his system of war, and his conduct in Battle, as well as our own.

Stuart opined that General McClellan’s Army of the Potomac would not resume its forward movement until it had fortified the area south of the Chickahominy. Consequently, A pitched battle here [north of the Chickahominy] though a Victory, [would be] utterly fruitless to us. Stuart held that the proper course for Lee to follow was for him to mass his artillery and hold his left on the Chickahominy and attack south of that stream with the remainder of his army. Stuart continued:

We have an army far better adapted to attack than defense. Let us fight at an advantage before we are forced to fight at disadvantage. It may seem presumption in me to give these views, but I have not thus far mistaken the policy and practice of the enemy. At any rate, I would rather incur the charge of presumption than fold my arms in silence and indifference to the momentous crisis at hand. Be assured, however, General, that whatever course you pursue you will find nowhere a more zealous and determined cooperator and supporter….²

Lee did not seriously consider Stuart’s plea to assail McClellan’s hosts south of the Chickahominy. He fretted that if he adopted the action urged by Stuart—whom he first knew as a cadet when Lee was superintendent at the U.S. Military Academy and later got to know better in mid-October 1859 during John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry—his army would be at a disadvantage. General Lee had a talent for knowing the enemy and had served with McClellan on Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott’s staff during the Mexican-American War. All that he saw satisfied Lee that McClellan planned to capture Richmond and defeat the Confederates by first investing and then besieging the city. To counter a siege and bombardment, in which God would be on the side of the heaviest guns and battalions, Lee developed a counter-strategy. On June 5, the day after receipt of Stuart’s proposal, Lee informed President Jefferson Davis:

McClellan will make this a battle of Posts. He will take position from position, under cover of his heavy guns, and we cannot get at him without storming his works…. It will require 100,000 men to resist the regular siege of Richmond, which perhaps would only prolong not save it. I am preparing a line that I can hold with part of our forces in front, while with the rest I will endeavour to make a diversion to bring McClellan out.³

The diversion Lee contemplated was an all-out attack north of the Chickahominy. Part of the army would hold the earthworks north and south of the Williamsburg and Nine Mile Roads, while the rest crossed to the north bank of the Chickahominy near Mechanicsville and assailed McClellan’s right flank corps. Such a maneuver would compromise McClellan’s major supply line—the Richmond & York River Railroad, which extended northeast 14 miles from Savage’s Station to White House Landing on the Pamunkey River. Such an offensive, Lee told President Davis, would compel McClellan to come out of his entrenchments and fight the Confederates on ground of their choosing, thus forestalling the projected siege.

On June 10, Jeb Stuart received a summons to report to the Dabbs’ house. This time, no grand strategy was discussed. Lee wanted to talk about a scheme he had been considering for the past several days. When he entered Lee’s office, Stuart was introduced to an opportunity the likes of which he lusted for. Lee told Stuart of his plan to attack McClellan’s army north of the Chickahominy. If the army were to take the offensive in this sector, Lee continued, he must first learn the whereabouts of the Union outposts. Specifically, Lee wanted to know the strength of McClellan’s pickets patrolling the watershed separating the Chickahominy and Pamunkey rivers. Stuart’s youthful enthusiasm boiled over as he listened. When Lee finished speaking, Stuart announced that he could do more than ascertain the position of the Federal right; if the commanding General permitted, he would ride entirely around McClellan’s army. Lee undoubtedly vetoed such a rash proposal.⁴

In a buoyant frame of mind, Stuart rejoined his command. Here was a choice mission for a 29-year-old who only 15 months before had been a captain in the 1st U.S. Cavalry. That evening, Stuart received additional information from Lee concerning the Federals’ dispositions. Ac cording to the reports reaching army headquarters, the Union right was stronger than Lee had anticipated when he had spoken with Stuart earlier. If this were true, Stuart’s forced reconnaissance could involve serious fighting.

Before noon on the next day, Wednesday, June 11, a staff officer galloped up on