The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: From Yorktown to the Seven Days, Volume One

By William J. Miller

The first of three volumes. The Civil War’s Peninsula Campaign (March through July 1862) was the first large-scale Union operation in Virginia to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. The operation was organized and led by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, whose amphibious turning operation was initially successful in landing troops at the tip of the Virginia peninsula against the cautious Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. When Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines at the end of May outside Richmond, however, Gen. Robert E. Lee was elevated to command the Army of Northern Virginia. His subsequent major offensive to defeat The Army of the Potomac during the Seven Days’ Battles turned the tide of the campaign and the entire momentum of the war in the Eastern Theater. Original well-researched and written essays by leading scholars in the field on a wide variety of fascinating topics. Contains original maps, photos, and illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Savas Publishing
• Release date: Sep 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781940669038

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© 1997, 2013, by Theodore P. Savas

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publisher.

The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: Yorktown to the Seven Days, William J. Miller, editor

Originally published: Campbell, California (Savas Publishing, 1997).

Includes bibliographic references and index

Digital First Edition

eISBN-13: 978-1-940669-03-8

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This volume is dedicated to the memory of the forgotten casualties of the Peninsula Campaign: the families of the killed, maimed, missing and diseased.

Gen. George B. McClellan. National Archives

Have had a terrible contest—attacked by greatly superior numbers in all directions. On this side we still hold our own, though a very heavy fire is still kept up.

On the left bank of Chickahominy the odds have been immense. We hold our own very nearly. I may be forced to give up my position during the night, but will not if it is possible to avoid it. Had I (20,000) twenty thousand fresh & good troops we would be sure of a splendid victory tomorrow. My men have fought magnificently.

G B McClellan

Maj Genl

Gen. Robert E. Lee. Cook Collection, Valentine Museum, Richmond, Va.

Headquarters

June 27. 1862

Mr. President:

Profoundly grateful to Almighty God for the signal victory granted to us, it is my pleasing task to announce to you the success achieved by this army today. The enemy was this morning driven from his strong position behind Beaver Dam Creek and pursued to that behind Powhite Creek, and finally, after a severe contest of five hours, entirely repulsed from the field. Night put an end to the contest. I grieve to state that our loss in officers and men is great. We sleep on the field, and shall renew the contest in the morning.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully

R. E. Lee

General

David A. Woodbury

David A. Woodbury

Contents

Introduction

William F. Miller, series editor

I give you the material to be used at your discretion.

Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee in the Seven Days

Steven E. Woodworth

The Pennsylvania Reserves: General George A. McCall’s Division on the Peninsula

Richard A. Sauers

Before the Seven Days: The Reorganization of the Confederate Army in the Spring of 1862

Kevin Conley Ruffner

…Into the very jaws of the enemy… Jeb Stuart’s Ride Around McClellan

Edwin C. Bearss

‘They fired into us an awful fire": The Civil War Diary of Pvt. Charles C. Perkins, 1st Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, June 4 - July 4, 1862

Edited by Richard J. Sommers

The Grand Campaign: A Journal of Operations on the Peninsula, March 17-August 26, 1862

Compiled by William F. Miller

End Notes

SNEAK PEEK: Following the ‘End Notes’ is the contents and covers of The Peninsula Campaign of 1862, Volumes Two and Three!

List of Maps

Theater of Operations

The Seven Days Battles

The Pennsylvania Reserves at Mechanicsville, June 26, 1862

The Pennsylvania Reserves at Gaines’ Mill, June 27, 1862

The Pennsylvania Reserves at Glendale, June 30, 1862

Stuart’s Ride Around McClellan, June 12-14, 1862

Stuart’s Ride, June 13, 1862

Stuart’s Ride, June 14, 1862

List of Illustrations

Gen. Robert E. Lee

Gen. George B. McClellan

Confederate President Jefferson Davis

Brig. Gen. George A. McCall

Flag of the 11th Pennsylvania Reserves

Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown Stuart

Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke

Pvt. Charles C. Perkins

Capt. Abial G. Chamberlain, Lt. Frank W. Carruth, Sgt. Nathaniel Averell, and Chap. Warren H. Cudworth

Brig. Gen. Cuvier Grover, Brig. Gen. Joseph Hooker, Col. Robert Cowdin, and Brig. Gen. Samuel F. Heintzelman

William J. Miller

The series editor of The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: Yorktown to the Seven Days holds a B.A. degree in English from Villanova University and an M.A. in English from the University of Delaware.

He has published articles on various Civil War topics in numerous periodicals, including Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the American Civil War and America’s Civil War. Mr. Miller is the author of three books dealing with Civil War subjects: The Training of an Army: Camp Curtin and the North’s Civil War (White Mane, 1990), The Men of Fort Ward (Friends of Fort Ward, 1990), and the forthcoming Mapping for Stonewall: The Civil War Service of Jed Hotchkiss (Elliott & Clark, 1993).

In addition to serving as the editor of this series, Mr. Miller also serves as the editor for the American Blue & Gray Association.

Introduction

Not long ago, while browsing among the groaning shelves of the Civil War section in a local bookstore, I overheard two businessmen, apparently killing time on their lunch hour. Both fortyish and well dressed, they showed no interest in the history books, but for a passing remark. In a tone of disbelief, one said to the other, Look at all the Civil War books! The other man replied, I saw a Civil War book on Gettysburg. It was huge, about 500 pages or more. Then he chuckled as he got to what he clearly thought was the incredible payoff line, "And it was only on the second day of the battle!" They smiled, shook their heads, and went their way.

Most of us who study the war have encountered similar reactions from friends, spouses and acquaintances who just do not understand how we can devote so much time and energy to a war that ended more than a century and a quarter ago. Most of these good people, like the gentlemen in the bookstore, clearly think that society has learned all that the Civil War can teach us. It was, after all, a war, and wars are bad. Why must we, they ask, spend our time studying the hatred and suffering and death of that terrible conflict? The answer, of course, or part of it, is quite simply to try to understand hatred and suffering and death. These evils exist today just as they did in the 1860’s and just as they will 130 years from now and as long as man chooses to perpetrate them. So for that reason alone, study of the war and its effects is relevant and ultimately a worthy undertaking.

In truth, though, we are not so much studying the evil aspects of war as we are studying the human reaction to them. This brings us the understanding that war is composed of much more than suffering and death. It contains courage and sacrifice and even love. It is a human enterprise and therefore contains all that is humanity. Military history, then, like all other branches of history, is really anthropology, the study of mankind. Despite all our interest in weapons and tactics and other minutia of the conflict, I think it is essentially the humanness of the military endeavor that keeps us interested and thirsting to learn more.

Americans have a fascination with the Civil War because it remains so close to us. Our ancestors fought it; participants came from our own hometowns and some of us live on former battlegrounds or campsites. The warfare ran the gamut from the frigid, snowy fields of Fort Donelson and Fredericksburg to the bayous of Louisiana, to the beaches of the Carolinas, and the swamps of the Peninsula. This was our war. Every one in the nation was involved in it somehow, and it touches us still. Those of us who study it have often thought how it must have been to have our peaceful towns and counties convulsed by the destruction of marching armies—our homes and property ruined, our communities devastated by the loss of sons and neighbors and nephews. And the men and women who persevered through that most terrible time were ours as well. Their blood still runs in our veins. In our quest for understanding them and their time, we read their letters and diaries and study narratives of battles and campaigns, including Harry Pfanz’s 601-page book on the second day at Gettysburg. Scholars and historians continue to mine libraries and archives for new information because, surprising as it may be to our acquaintances, spouses and gentlemen in bookstores, we know very little about some of the major events of the war. One of the campaigns we know little about is the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.

It was one of the monumental campaigns of the war. From the Federal perspective, the Peninsula Campaign was the most complex and ambitious operation of the war to that point, as well as the most expensive. It was also a thoroughly modern campaign in that it required close cooperation between army and navy, called for amphibious landings, the logistical and even tactical use of railroads, demanded siege trains and the widespread use of engineer troops. It was so large and so expensive and conducted on such an enormous scale, that nothing in the American military experience could compare to it. Probably only a man with the colossal ego of George B. McClellan could have envisioned and proposed such an enormous movement of men and matériel under his own direction.

For the Confederacy, the Peninsula Campaign was the greatest crisis the young government would face in the first three years of the war. Despite all his logistical problems, his procrastination and his feuding with Washington, McClellan could have taken Richmond in that second summer of the war. Jefferson Davis and his advisor Robert E. Lee were very concerned indeed about the fate of their capital, for they knew they might not be able to counterbalance the huge Federal advantages in matériel, the eventual dominance in the James River of the U.S. Navy, and, perhaps most worrisome, the siege guns that McClellan hoped to push up to the very outskirts of the city. It seems certain that Richmond could not have survived a siege, and Lee determined that only bold, aggressive action could prevent McClellan from bringing the city under his guns. As Lee would do so many times in the future when he found himself at a disadvantage, he attacked. Joseph E. Johnston might have done the same in late June 1862, but we can never know. The patient and meticulous Johnston might have been the man to save Richmond, the audacious Lee unquestionably was.

Despite the enormous scope, high stakes and compelling drama of the campaign, historians have devoted remarkably little time to its study. This is undoubtedly due in part to its daunting size, in part to its political complexity and in part to the anonymity of many of its principals. Who were these men whose names are just vaguely familiar to most Civil War buffs? Heintzelman, Keyes, Morell, McCall, Holmes, Magruder and Huger all played significant roles in the campaign; their names appear in narratives and reports, yet soon after the campaign ended they disappeared from center stage and remained out of the spotlight for the rest of the war. Few students of the war can put faces to these men, and fewer still know what became of them and why.

The complexity of the operation discourages investigation as well. Few campaigns included as many distinct combats. According to the U.S. war department tally, McClellan’s extended foray on the Peninsula included 48 skirmishes, seven battles, nine engagements, six actions, one demonstration, 27 reconnaissances, four expeditions and one scout between April 4 and August 6. Moreover, the fighting occurred in scores of places unfamiliar to even the best geography students among us. From Dam Number One and Slash Church to Meadow Bridge and Malvern Cliff, few students of the war can gain an understanding of what happened in the campaign and where without very good maps, which are rare. But even with a first rate chart, the multiplicity of names given to places frustrates our sense of place. Indeed, this same fact confused the combatants, and topographical confusion played a significant role in the climactic battles in late June. The crossroads of Glendale, for example, was known by no fewer than three other names, and participants in the battle there had at least six names for the engagement.

Despite the imposing obstacles, there have been several noteworthy efforts to record the history or interpret the meaning of the campaign. In 1881, Gen. Alexander S. Webb wrote his 219-page study of the campaign as part memoir, part analysis and part critique. As a young staff officer serving under the Army of the Potomac’s chief of artillery on the Peninsula, the West Point-trained Webb was an intelligent observer of events and personalities at the upper reaches of that army. When he sat down almost 20 years later to write the first volume devoted entirely to the campaign, he brought a rare perspective to his task. Though far from comprehensive, Webb’s The Peninsula (New York, 1881, rpt. Broadfoot 1989) belongs on every student’s reading list.

The Peninsula Campaign (Harrisburg, PA: 1973), by Joseph P. Cullen, is a very short (185 pages), very general look at the campaign. Using material that is mostly well known to students and offering no citations, Cullen presents a balanced but inadequate overview, accenting McClellan’s failure rather than Lee’s triumph. Mr. Cullen was an employee of the National Park Service in Richmond and also wrote the Park Service guidebook to the park (Richmond National Battlefield Park, NPS Historical Handbook Series No. 33 (Washington, D.C., 1961)), in which he presents a concise, 27-page campaign outline (the booklet also covers the 1864-1865 campaigns around Richmond). Though this modest pamphlet has merit, by far the better concise overview is Dr. Emory Thomas’ magazine format Richmond. Dr. Thomas published a series of articles on the Peninsula Campaign in Civil War Times Illustrated in 1979, from which this 48-page, illustrated volume was compiled. Dr. Thomas’ insightful, though infrequent, analysis of events makes this publication worthwhile.

The ubiquitous Richard Wheeler fleetingly turned his attention to the campaign in Sword Over Richmond: An Eyewitness History of McClellan ‘s’ Peninsula Campaign (New York, 1986). Mr. Wheeler’s volume, one in his series of Eyewitness History books on the Civil War, at tempts to present in a chronological running narrative a representative selection of experiences and descriptions from writings of scores of Union and Confederate politicians, officers, soldiers from all ranks, chaplains, medical personnel, newsmen, and women of Richmond whose letters, diaries, reports, and memoirs have been discovered by the author (from the dust jacket). Unfortunately, Mr. Wheeler seems to have relied very heavily on well-known published sources, especially Battles and Leaders of the Civil War which, while a valuable source, is very familiar to students. Most disappointing is Mr. Wheeler’s decision not to offer citations.

In The Seven Days: The Emergence of Lee (Boston, 1964), Clifford Dowdey looks at Lee’s role in the Peninsula Campaign, but focuses on the events of June and July during Lee’s first weeks in command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Dowdey deals little with McClellan and the whole Federal tableau of hesitation, paranoia, frustration and excessive caution that had Washington and Little Mac at loggerheads. The focus is squarely on Lee and his lieutenants, especially Jackson. The author devotes considerable space discussing Old Jack’s performance in The Seven Days, finally concluding that the general suffered from stress, a conclusion far more courageous and controversial in 1964 than it would be today.

The Seven Days has great value because of Dowdey’s analysis of Lee’s decisions, but the book concentrates on only one side of the story, and its usefulness as a resource is limited by the absence of citations.

Mr. Dowdey’s important book is bettered in terms of presenting the Confederate perspective by several chapters in Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman’s R. E. . Lee: A Biography (New York, 1934). Dr. Freeman, who lived in Richmond for much of his life, knew the Confederate dramatis personae better than has any other historian of the campaign. Though the narrative centers on Lee and scarcely treats the Army of the Potomac at all, Freeman’s trenchant analysis and fluid, logical presentation should give this book a very high place on the reading list of any student wishing to gain a better understanding of the campaign, particularly The Seven Days.

Certainly the best history of the campaign is Stephen W. Sears’ To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (New York, 1992). Though not definitive, this study succeeds better than any other in presenting a broad picture of the campaign and addressing the problems and personalities that make the operation so interesting. Mr. Sears covers the issues and event from both the Federal and Confederate perspectives, but not always with the desired depth and objectivity. Sears’ dislike of McClellan is no secret to readers of his previous books, and one does not have to be an admirer of McClellan to see the author’s treatment of the general in To the Gates of Richmond as rough to the point of unfairness. Despite its shortcomings, however, Mr. Sears’ book may be the best place to begin a study of the campaign.

There are many other worthy books, articles, special studies, biographies and standard primary sources that relate to various aspects of the campaign, and readers of this and future issues of this series will undoubtedly be introduced to them through the citations of the articles herein.

Our hope with this project is to further the general understanding of this long-neglected campaign by providing the place and the opportunity for historians to:

1. Examine in depth major controversies of the campaign—e.g. the overall performance in the campaign of Jackson, McClellan, Johnston, Magruder and others, Longstreet at Seven Pines, Huger at Glendale, Lee vs. Magruder, Johnston vs. Davis, etc.

2. Study specific operations—movements and engagements—in greater detail than ever before possible.

3. Focus more attention on the people involved—from the commanding generals to the privates.

Future articles already in development for subsequent volumes of this series will present original research on such subjects as the relative strengths of the armies, the conduct of specific battles and engagements, biographies of units and commanders, logistical support for the armies, topography and engineering in the campaign, naval participation and new, unpublished first-hand accounts. The result, we hope, will be a portrait of the campaign that, while perhaps not comprehensive, will be rich in detail and analysis. Whatever it may eventually lack in breadth it will compensate for in depth.

When all the articles in this series of volumes have been read and digested, we hope we will have brought students closer to an understanding, not just of the actual conduct of the campaign from the strategic and tactical standpoints and the cost of the campaign in spent dollars, abandoned matériel and lost soldiers, but in more human terms. We hope the work of the scholars and historians on these pages will permit a deeper, fuller knowledge of what it was like to serve between the rivers east of Richmond that spring and summer and of how those who were there responded to the suffering and death that surrounded them on the Peninsula.

William J. Miller, Manassas, Virginia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank Mr. Michael Andrus, Supervisory Historian at Richmond National Battlefield Park, for his general support and his assistance in identifying authoritative maps, and Dr. Richard J. Sommers, Archivist/Historian at The U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, for his assistance in identifying and obtaining photographs.

Cover photo: Battery Number 4 before Yorktown (LC). Battery Number 4 consisted of ten 13-inch sea-service mortars (1861) and was manned by Batteries F and G of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. Situated on a branch of Wormley’s Creek and just 400 yards from the York River, Battery Number 4 sat 2,500 yards—just over 1.4 miles—from the main Confederate works southeast of Yorktown. Each one of the mortars weighed 17,120 pounds and, according to Maj. Alexander Doull, ordnance officer of General McClellan’s siege train, exceeded in weight …By 50 per cent, any guns that have ever before been placed in siege batteries.¹ None of these mortars fired a shot at Yorktown.

Steven E. Woodworth

Steven Woodworth has published widely on the Civil War and is the author of the highly acclaimed Jefferson Davis and his Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (University Press of Kansas, 1990), which won the Fletcher Pratt Award. He is series editor for a new Campaign Chronicles project entitled Leadership and Command in the Civil War. Dr. Woodworth teaches history at Toccoa Falls College in Toccoa Falls, Georgia.

I give you the material to be used at your discretion:

Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee in the Seven Days

Darkness was settling over the landscape of eastern Virginia as two riders urged their horses along the muddy roads leading to Richmond. Ahead of them, the spires of the young Confederacy’s capital rose in silhouette against the fading light of the last day of May, 1862. The two men had just witnessed the unraveling of a promising plan in the bungled Battle of Seven Pines. In an appalling finale, they had seen the commander of their army, General Joseph E. Johnston—from whom much had been hoped but little gained—carried to the rear gravely wounded. The military outlook was dismal, and if it was to be brightened these two riders, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his senior military advisor General Robert E. Lee, would have to make the crucial decisions. Most of what passed between them on that ride is unknown, but one thing is certain. At some point Davis informed his companion that he was appointing him to take over the bloodied Confederate army defending Richmond.¹

Thus began what would become one of the more successful civilian- military partnerships in the history of warfare. Rarely has the chief executive of a republic at war worked as closely and effectively with his top general as Davis did with Lee. Rarely has a commanding general shown the wisdom and tact in dealing with his civilian superiors that Lee did with Davis. And rarely has such a team had the successes that Davis and Lee enjoyed. Yet, in the end, after almost four years of working together, they failed, and defeat tested and measured their skills as no triumph ever could. The mistakes of Davis and Lee loom larger for the consequences that followed them. The patterns of cooperation between these two men were hammered out during the first five tension-filled weeks of Lee’s command of the Army of