The Battle of Seven Pines

Following the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5th, 1862, Gen. George B. McClellan’s Union Army of the Potomac advanced slowly on the Confederate capital of Richmond Virginia, establishing two new army corps on his Peninsula Campaign in support of his original three. By the end of May, McClellan stood an army of 105,000 men, with his supply base moved deeper into Virginia to White House Landing.

Geographic Handicap

Dangerously straddling the Chickahominy River—with three armies on the north shore and two on the south, all in an area where most bridges over the river had been preemptively destroyed by the Rebels—Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston took advantage of McClellan’s geographic handicap by attacking the Union’s isolated IV Corps under the command of Gen. Erasmus Keyes and McClellan’s III Corp led by Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman. Beginning late on May 31st, 1862, in a two-day battle involving 73,000 men, the Confederates drove Keyes’ IV Corps from Seven Pines Virginia, approximately ten miles east of Richmond, inflicting heavy casualties on Union forces, before reinforcements from Heintzelman’s III Corp arrived to hold the Union left.

Decisive Victory

A mile to the north, near Fair Oaks Station, Confederate Gen. William C. Whiting attacked the Union right flank, before Union forces under the command of Gen. Edwin Sumner’s II Corps crossed the Chickahominy over the Grapevine Bridge to stabilize the Union line. After Johnston was wounded in action, early on June 1st, the Confederates renewed their attack on Federal positions, until Gen. Joseph Hooker’s III Corps forced a Rebel retreat, ending two days of bloody fighting.

High Casualties

By the time canon and gunfire fell silent, the Union Army had suffered 5,739 casualties, while the Confederate’s suffered just shy of 8,000, and while both sides claimed victory at Seven Pines, Johnston’s wounding had a profound impact on the remainder of the war, when Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed Gen. Robert E. Lee to command the Rebel Army. Lee’s aggressive style successfully pushed McClellan’s Army of the Potomac safely away from Richmond, extending the war for another 33 months, before America’s war with herself came to its blood soaked conclusion.