Chapter 12

In This Chapter

Introducing Robert E. Lee

Changing commanders leads to a new campaign plan

Facing the realities of war: McClellan loses his nerve

S tonewall Jackson’s last battle in the Valley Campaign coincided with important events taking place on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. On May 31, while Jackson was enjoying the fruits of his victory at Winchester, fellow Confederate Joseph E. Johnston had fought a battle just 6 miles outside the capital at a place called Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks). His army was repulsed with many losses, including Johnston himself, who was severely wounded while directing the battle.

The Confederacy in Crisis: Seven Pines

Union General McClellan had moved his army toward Richmond and set it astride the Chickahominy River. Usually a small stream easily crossed, recent heavy rains in May turned it into an impassable obstacle, essentially cutting McClellan’s army in two. Johnston, who had been waiting for just such an opportunity, made the decision to attack the weaker right flank of the Union army. A Union corps stood at the intersection of three main roads at a place called Seven Pines.

Johnston called his subordinates together and outlined his plan. It was simple enough: The army would divide itself into three columns, each of which would march on a separate road and converge at the Seven Pines intersection to crush the Union forces. What Johnston discovered, however, was that the simplest things in war are often the hardest things to accomplish. The plan implied a rather intricate timetable of movement, precisely coordinated so that everyone was moving at the same speed on the correct route to arrive at the same time. This is exactly what didn’t happen. The roads became jammed with units marching fast, slow, and in-between; the ones on time and in the right place now merging with those units that got a late start and were in the wrong place. Any commuter will recognize this scene. On top of all this, it had rained the night before, turning the roads into mud bogs. Needless to say, Johnston’s troops arrived very late and in ineffective bits and pieces. The Union troops were forced back, but held off the repeated attacks.

Johnston, moving up front to get a better view of the action, was hit in the shoulder with a bullet and, seconds later, hit in the chest with a shell fragment. He was taken off the field with what many believed to be a mortal wound. The following day the attack was renewed, but Lee, having been appointed the new army commander, arrived on the field and ordered a retreat into the defenses around the city. In this time of crisis, Jefferson Davis turned to his military advisor to take command of the army. This officer had held command in late 1861, but had done poorly in the mountains of western Virginia. Davis had no other choice. The general’s name was Robert E. Lee. Lee’s mission was simple. Somehow, in whatever fashion, he had to take control of an army whose leaders were strangers to him, defeat an enemy that outnumbered him at least 2 to 1, and, in the process, save the Confederacy. As impossible as the tasks may sound — he did all of that and more.

Rising star: Robert E. Lee

The Lee name is indelibly linked to the American Revolution and the new nation it created. Robert E. Lee, born in 1807 at Stratford Hall, in Virginia, was the son of “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a famous cavalry commander. In 1829 he graduated from West Point (along with Joseph E. Johnston), standing second in his class. He married the daughter of the adopted son of George Washington, who owned a beautiful mansion at Arlington. He had seven children; three of his sons would serve in the Confederate army. He fought in the Mexican War as a member of General Winfield Scott’s staff, conducting reconnaissance missions that led to several brilliant victories for the U.S. Army. In 1852, he became the superintendent of West Point and later served with a cavalry regiment on the frontier.

While on leave in 1859, he took charge of the Marines who ended John Brown’s raid. He was appointed commander of the Department of Texas, serving until December 1860. When Winfield Scott offered him command of the armies of the United States in 1861, he sadly refused. Virginia had already seceded. Although he loved his country, he could not remain in a “Union maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness.” His duty lay with his state. Lee became one of the highest-ranking Generals in the Confederacy, serving as President Jefferson Davis’s military advisor.

Results of the Battle: McClellan Falters

The battle was indecisive in the short term. The Confederates lost 6,000 men, and the Union lost about a thousand less.

What became more significant in the long term was the effect the casualties had on McClellan. He could not bear the sight of his magnificent soldiers being killed and wounded. The battle convinced him more than ever that the Confederates outnumbered him; otherwise, why would they attack? By the end of May, McClellan had convinced himself that as things stood, he had no chance of taking Richmond. McClellan, learning the Johnston had been wounded, had a low opinion of the new Confederate commander. He believed Lee was timid, cautious, and lacking in moral firmness. Ironically, he was describing himself rather than his opponent.

Even after it was obvious that the Confederates sought to take advantage of the Chickahominy River barrier and strike the army’s right flank, McClellan made no effort to improve his position there, other than to build bridges over the river to allow the rapid passage of reinforcements. During this time, he kept hoping for the arrival of McDowell from Fredricksburg to tie into his right flank. But, as long as Stonewall Jackson was in the Shenandoah Valley, McDowell’s force was going nowhere. What McClellan failed to notice was that his right flank also guarded the Union Army’s supply depot at the White House, just a few miles down on the Pamunkey River. A crushing blow to the right flank would also cut off the army from its supplies, leaving McClellan in serious trouble. He would be forced to retreat toward the James River, or fall back down the peninsula. Either way presented Lee with numerous options to attack portions of McClellan’s army or trap it in the swamps near the city and destroy it. Lee noticed this opportunity as he studied his maps and prepared a campaign plan to drive the Yankees from Richmond.

Taking Command: The “King of Spades”

Lee (see Figure 12-1) took about a month to organize himself. He had the troops begin digging elaborate trenches to protect the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, an action for which he was roundly criticized. The soldiers, tired of waging war with shovels and pickaxes rather than rifles and cannon, called him “the King of Spades” and others repeated a name he had picked up from his earlier command in western Virginia, “Granny Lee.” Despite the grumbling, Lee used the time afforded him well. He began to draw troops by rail from all over the lower South to Richmond. After Jackson’s victory at Port Republic, Lee secretly brought Jackson down to the outskirts of Richmond to prepare for an attack.

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Jeb Stuart’s ride around McClellan

In the meantime, Lee sent cavalry leader Jeb Stuart on a reconnaissance mission to determine the location of the Union Army. Stuart did this with 1,200 men and great aplomb, not just collecting valuable intelligence on the enemy forces but also riding around McClellan’s entire army as though it was the simplest thing in the world to do. He destroyed supplies, humiliated his pursuers, and returned to a hero’s welcome. Another Confederate legend had been born.

The most important piece of information Stuart provided to Lee was that McClellan had indeed left his right flank unprotected. Jackson’s army was arriving at the proper location to fall on the Union flank and rear, while Lee attacked from the front. Lee had 88,000 men against McClellan’s 115,00. But only 30,000 men covered the Union right flank. Lee had the advantages of surprise, mass, and maneuver. He took a fantastic gamble, leaving only 25,000 men in the entrenchments protecting Richmond. If McClellan got wind of Lee’s plan, the remainder of the Union army could sweep into the capital of the Confederacy almost unopposed. Everything depended on McClellan’s passive battlefield leadership. McClellan himself believed he faced 200,000; soon he heard that Jackson had arrived as well. He knew things were serious now.

The seven days begin: Lee at Mechanicsville (Beaver Dam Creek)

Lee’s orders for the attack on the Union right flank on June 26 were very similar to Johnston’s at Seven Pines. Again the orders envisioned a coordinated assault by four different commanders. Again, inexperience, impatience, and an overly complex battle plan led to the Confederate army conducting piecemeal frontal assaults against heavily entrenched Union troops. This battle, called Mechanicsville or Beaver Dam Creek (see Figure 12-2), achieved very little. Only one Confederate division, A. P. Hill’s, actually got into the fight. The Southerners lost nearly 1,500 men; Union losses numbered 360.

That night, McClellan ordered his corps commander, Fitz-John Porter, to retreat to a less exposed defensive position at Gaines’s Mills. Lee followed, and the next day, again attempted the same type of coordinated attack against the flank and rear of Porter’s corps. Again, A. P. Hill carried the brunt of the fighting while Jackson’s army wandered lost in the woods, hearing the noise of battle, but unable to find the battlefield. Finally, about 7 p.m., Jackson arrived and ordered his men to sweep the enemy from the battlefield with the bayonet. As Jackson appeared on the flank, the Union center broke after one of the most courageous charges of the war, led by Texan John Bell Hood. The Union defenses dissolved, leaving 6,800 casualties. The Confederates, again forced to make frontal attacks against dug-in infantry and artillery, lost 8,700 men. McClellan’s army was now across the Chickahominy — but the Union supply depot at White House belonged to Lee.

Where was Jackson?

Jackson’s history-making combat performance in the Shenandoah Valley was followed up by a dismal performance in the Seven Days battles. In his plans, Lee repeatedly placed Jackson’s force at the critical point of the attack, confident that Jackson would move rapidly and strike hard. But Jackson was always late, or lost, or not moving at all, even at times when within earshot of battle. Jackson’s reputation suffered a bit in the aftermath, and Jackson himself never had an explanation for his performance. Historians and biographers tend to agree that by this time Jackson was suffering from combat fatigue and exhaustion, compounded by a lack of familiarity with the terrain. Benumbed by the accumulated fatigue and stress of the Valley Campaign, he simply could not respond to the new situation he found himself in. Unsure of what Lee wanted of him at times, he fell back on his very strong sense of duty by strict adherence to orders as given. This put him and his forces out of the fight at critical times, leading to incomplete and unsatisfying victories.

McClellan calls it quits

Even though Porter had been pushed back and suffered significant casualties, the Union line had actually become stronger than it was before. Also, Lee had engaged only one Union corps. The rest of the Union army had been untouched. True, McClellan had lost his supply base, but he still had the navy at his rear on the James River, and he had already initiated orders for a new base of supply on the James River at Harrison’s Landing. McClellan held all the cards. But the Young Napoleon (as McClellan was called) had had enough. Shaken by Lee’s audacity and the tenacity of the enemy’s assaults, he ordered what he termed a “change of base” and headed for the James River. Everyone, from President Lincoln on down to the lowest private, called it something else: a retreat.

Lee, sensing what McClellan had in mind, ordered every unit he could find, including the troops from the trenches protecting Richmond, to make contact with the enemy and drive him to destruction. The result was again a lost opportunity to coordinate separate and dispersed units for a single, overwhelming attack. The attacking Confederates found the center of the Union line, and in brutal fighting over two days, first at White Oak Swamp (Savage’s Station), then at Glendale (Frayser’s Farm), succeeded in only speeding the pace of the Union army’s retreat to a stronger defensive position. As McClellan’s army moved closer to the James River, the more concentrated it became, and the more firepower it could bring to bear on an attacking enemy.

Battle Captain’s Report: The Seven Days Battles, June 26–July 1, 1862

Confederate Victory

Commanders: Union: Major General George B. McClellan, Army of the Potomac, 115,000 men. Confederate: General Robert E. Lee, Army of Northern Virginia, 85,000 men.

Phase I: After a slow, two-month movement up the peninsula, McClellan’s army is just outside Richmond’s city limits. General Joseph E. Johnston, who has been giving ground up to this time, attacks a portion of the Union army at Seven Pines on May 31. He is wounded, and President Davis appoints Robert E. Lee as the new commander. At the end of June, Lee has assembled sufficient force to go on the offensive against the inactive Union army. Jeb Stuart rides around McClellan’s army to gather intelligence. Stonewall Jackson arrives with his army from the Shenadoah Valley. Lee seeks to destroy the right flank of the Union army isolated across the Chickahominy River and cut off the rest of McClellan’s army from its supply base at White House. At Mechanicsville (Beaver Dam Creek), Porter’s Union Corps holds off a determined, but poorly coordinated, Confederate attack.

Phase II: McClellan orders Porter to fall back to better defensible terrain. Porter does so in time to meet another determined, but poorly coordinated attack at Gaines’s Mill on June 27. Jackson arrives late, but in time to assist in driving off the Union forces at the final phase of the battle. Lee has pushed the Union army over the Chickahominy and gained control of McClellan’s supply base. McClellan now has decided to retreat to the safety of the James River. He orders the army to begin a consolidation at Harrison’s Landing.

Phase III: Lee attempts to destroy McClellan’s army while it is retreating. Again his battle plans go awry in hard-fought, but indecisive, battles at White Oak Swamp (Savage’s Station) on June 29 and Glendale (Frayser’s Farm) on June 30. Essentially, the Union army is fighting to save its life, protecting its vulnerable rear from attack. McClellan breaks contact with the pursuing Confederates and assembles a very powerful defensive force at Malvern Hill to protect his army as it moves to the James River. Lee, believing McClellan’s army is about to collapse, orders an all-out attack on July 1. The attack fails as wave after wave of Confederate infantry is shattered by concentrated artillery fire from the hill. McClellan retreats safely back to Harrison’s Landing, forming a strong position able to resist any attack. McClellan makes plans to return his army to Washington. Satisfied that the Union army will no longer threaten Richmond, Lee forgoes any further attacks.

Casualties: Union 16,000, Confederate 20,000.

The end of the seven days: Lee’s final push at Malvern Hill

The last defensible piece of terrain before the river was a place called Malvern Hill, which was fronted by a wide, open plain. Here, the Union cannoneers placed 100 guns to the front and 150 guns on the flanks. Porter’s infantry, eager for revenge, waited nearby. Lee, certain that one more attack would crush the enemy and trap them against the river, led him to order a massed infantry assault to take Malvern Hill. The attack, led by Brigadier General Lewis Armistead (who would die the following year in a more famous, but equally doomed charge — Pickett’s at Gettysburg) was a disaster. Successive and equally ineffective assaults failed to dislodge the defenders, who again and again blasted the approaching infantry with high volumes of cannon fire. The Confederates lost 5,000 men on the field; the Union suffered fewer than 3,000 casualties. McClellan and his army reached the sanctuary of Harrison’s Landing, now protected by warships of the U.S. Navy. One of McClellan’s first actions upon arriving there was to telegraph Washington requesting 100,000 more men. The Seven Days battles were over.

The Significance of the Campaign

McClellan’s campaign to capture Richmond was soundly planned but poorly executed, due largely to McClellan’s inability to make the transition from trainer and organizer to field commander. In the office, as the leader and administrator of a training army, he was unexcelled. His grasp of strategy was excellent. But in the field, McClellan was cautious to the point of paralysis and slow to the point of lethargy. Unwilling to risk the magnificent military machine he built to losses in combat, he hoped somehow its mere presence before Richmond would cause the Confederacy to collapse.

Superior in numbers and equipment at the outset of the campaign, McClellan’s army had the opportunity to overwhelm the Confederates at any time. Yet by moving so slowly, he surrendered the initiative to his opponent. McClellan essentially chose to support an offensive strategy with a tactical defensive. In doing so, he gave himself up to Lee’s bold offensive plans.

Lee takes the offensive to win

Robert E. Lee, in every way McClellan’s opposite as a field General, began to make the decisions and take actions to which McClellan had to respond. Lee made quick work of the passive and ineffective McClellan with a sound offensive strategy. Badly outnumbered, he nonetheless assembled a strong army by using rail movement to mass the Confederacy’s combat power at a strategic point. Leaving Richmond largely defenseless, Lee took the offensive in a bold gamble to drive the Union army from Richmond and force the enemy to give up the fight.

Yet Lee, too, had his difficulties. The army he had was an ad hoc organization, thrown together at the last minute. Lee compounded this difficulty with very complex battle plans that required a great deal of close coordination and tight control; to do this, he relied on commanders he didn’t know and had only the slightest idea of their capabilities. Lee himself had little control over events after they were initiated. The result was a series of poorly conducted attacks with high losses that failed to meet Lee’s overall objective — the destruction of the Union Army. This was a change in style for many in the army. Lee was not interested in a draw, or a delay, or a stalemate. His goal was total victory by decisively defeating the enemy on the battlefield. In doing so, he discovered subordinate leaders who would be capable of such an approach to war. Stonewall Jackson certainly appeared to be such a leader. Lee and Jackson soon became an unbeatable team.

The seven days: The bottom line

The bottom line is that the Seven Days battles were won, not by Generals and their battle plans, but by the incredible bravery of the Confederate soldier, who day after day charged into terrible fire and won by sheer willpower. Likewise, the Peninsula Campaign was a failure because of the timidity of its commander, not by the tremendous fighting skills of the Union soldier, who resolutely refused to admit defeat. A year’s training and experience had created two very dangerous armies. Just as McClellan had given his army a name and an identity that would make history, so did General Lee. He called it the Army of Northern Virginia.

Heroes and Goats

In almost every battle, some officers make mistakes, others rise to the challenge, and some just put their time in. In retrospect, depending on the given circumstances of the situation, some names are lost to the sands of time, and others live on indefinitely.

Heroes

Following are the officers who employed skill and bravery to make things happen. They are:

Robert E. Lee: His audacity and unrelenting attacks unhinge McClellan and the Union Army. Although his plans are often too complicated and ambitious for the command structure, his ability to determine what must be done makes him successful. He becomes the miracle the Confederacy had been praying for. Joseph E. Johnston is forgotten.

Jeb Stuart: With his ride around McClellan’s army, he becomes the romantic ideal of the dashing Southern cavalry commander. Publicity plus skill make him a national figure.

Goats

Here are the officers who could’ve performed better during these battles:

George B. McClellan: He has victory in his grasp and perhaps could have ended the Civil War with just a simple order for his army to advance. But because he waited, Lee would gain the upper hand and defeat his plans. Lincoln is increasingly exasperated with McClellan’s complaining and timidity in the face of the enemy.

Stonewall Jackson: An example of how quickly in war a commander can go from brilliant to nothing in 24 hours. His performance is simply terrible. Lee’s opportunity to deliver perhaps the killing blow to the Union army is lost because of Jackson’s failure to act at the right time. He will recover his reputation quickly.