Battle of Frayser's Farm Glendale Civil War Virginia History


				Battle of Frayser's Farm



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Battle of Frayser's Farm

Frayser's Farm Civil War History

Battle of Frayser's Farm or Glendale

Seven Days Battles Around Richmond History

Other Names: Nelson’s Farm, Frayser’s Farm, Charles City Crossroads, White Oak Swamp, New Market Road, Riddell's Shop

Location: Henrico County, Virginia

Campaign: Peninsula Campaign (March-September 1862)

Date(s): June 30, 1862

Principal Commanders: Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan [US]; Gen. Robert E. Lee [CS]

Forces Engaged: Armies

Estimated Casualties: 7,500

Result(s): Inconclusive (Union withdrawal continued.)

Introduction: This was the fifth of six engagements fought during the Seven Days Battles (June 25 to July 1, 1862). On June 30, Huger’s, Longstreet’s, and A.P. Hill’s divisions converged on the retreating Union army in the vicinity of Glendale or Frayser’s Farm. Longstreet’s and Hill’s attacks penetrated the Union defense near Willis Church, routing McCall’s division. McCall was captured. Union counterattacks by Hooker’s and Kearny’s divisions sealed the break and saved their line of retreat along the Willis Church Road. Huger’s advance was stopped on the Charles City Road. “Stonewall” Jackson’s divisions were delayed by Franklin at White Oak Swamp. Confederate Maj. Gen. T.H. Holmes made a feeble attempt to turn the Union left flank at Turkey Bridge but was driven back by Federal gunboats in the James River. Union generals Meade and Sumner and Confederate generals Anderson, Pender, and Featherston were wounded. This was Lee’s best chance to cut off the Union army from the James River. That night, McClellan established a strong position on nearby Malvern Hill. Lee had McClellan's forces on the ropes, but his command's inability to coordinate their efforts was largely to blame for this tactical draw. Lee's performance, moreover, would prove to be disastrous at the Battle of Malvern Hill the following day.

1862 Virginia Civil War Battlefields

Battle of Frayser's Farm Map

Summary: Union reports generally referred to the action as Glendale while Confederate writers preferred Frayser's Farm (commonly misspelled Frazier's). These are just two of the several names or titles assigned to the battle fought on June 30, 1862.

Often identified as one of the Confederate army's great lost opportunities, this battle was the next to last of the Seven Days Battles. With the Union army in full retreat toward the James River in the face of Lee’s offensive, the Southern army set its sights on the critical intersection at Riddle's Shop, often called Glendale and sometimes referred to as Charles City Crossroads. Most of the Union army would have to funnel through that bottleneck on its way to the river.

Seven Union infantry divisions deployed across several miles to guard the intersection. Four separate Confederate columns angled toward the crossroads. Northeast of the crossroads, at White Oak Swamp, 30,000 men led by Confederate general “Stonewall” Jackson made no progress against blue-clad divisions under generals Smith and Richardson. Two other Southern columns, commanded by Benjamin Huger and Theophilus Holmes, met substantial resistance and failed to threaten the Union position. The fourth column, which included the troops of generals A. P. Hill and James Longstreet, struck George McCall's Pennsylvania Reserve division west of Glendale on either side of the Long Bridge Road. In the bitter fighting—some of it with bayonets and clubbed rifles—the Confederates captured more than a dozen cannon and were able to push to the edge of the old Frayser Farm, within sight of the road leading south from the intersection to the James River. But they could go no farther. The intersection remained open, and the Union army retreated safely on the night of the 30th. The casualty figures for June 30 are difficult to know with any certainty. General consensus states total losses at Frayser's Farm at some 7,500 in killed, wounded, missing and captured.

Perhaps no Civil War battle has so many different names. Virtually every Confederate who fought there called it the Battle of Frayser’s Farm, but Union soldiers knew it as Glendale, Nelson’s Farm, Riddle’s Shop, Charles City Crossroads, New Market Crossroads, or White Oak Swamp.

Today Richmond National Battlefield Park owns 140 acres of the battlefield, all of it acquired in recent years. Presently the land is inaccessible to the public, but there are plans to install a parking lot, restore the ground to its historic appearance, and develop walking trails and informational signs. Much of the rest of the battlefield is owned by the national non-profit Civil War Preservation Trust, which over the years has purchased and preserved more than 450 acres there, including most of the heart of the battlefield.

Battle of Frayser's Farm

Official Frayser's Farm Battlefield Map

Background: The Seven Days Battles, the last week of the Peninsula Campaign, began with a Union attack in the minor Battle of Oak Grove on June 25, 1862, but Maj. Gen. George McClellan quickly lost the initiative as Lee began a series of attacks at Beaver Dam Creek (Mechanicsville) on June 26, Gaines's Mill on June 27, the minor actions at Garnett's and Golding's Farm on June 27 and June 28, and the attack on the Union rear guard at Savage's Station on June 29. McClellan's Army of the Potomac continued its retreat toward the safety of Harrison's Landing on the James River.

After Gaines's Mill, McClellan left his army with no clear instructions on routes of withdrawal and without naming a second-in-command. The bulk of the V Corps (less McCall), under Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter, moved to occupy Malvern Hill, while the remaining four corps of the Army of the Potomac were essentially operating independently in their fighting withdrawal. Most elements of the army had been able to cross White Oak Swamp Creek by noon on June 30. About one third of the army had reached the James River, but the remainder was still marching between White Oak Swamp and Glendale. (Glendale was the name of a tiny community at the intersection of the Charles City Road and the Quaker Road, or Willis Church Road, which led over Malvern Hill to the James River.) After inspecting the line of march that morning, McClellan rode south and boarded the ironclad USS Galena on the James.

Lee ordered his Army of Northern Virginia to converge on the retreating Union forces, bottlenecked on the inadequate road network. The Army of the Potomac, lacking overall command coherence, presented a discontinuous, ragged defensive line. "Stonewall" Jackson was ordered to press the Union rear guard at the White Oak Swamp crossing while the largest part of Lee's army, some 45,000 men, would attack the Army of the Potomac in mid-retreat at Glendale, about 2 miles southwest, splitting it in two. Huger's division would strike first after a three-mile march on the Charles City Road, supported by Longstreet and A.P. Hill, whose divisions were about 7 miles to the west, in a mass attack. Holmes was ordered to cannonade retreating Federals near Malvern Hill.

Battle: As with most of the Seven Days Battles, Lee's plan was poorly executed. Huger was slowed by felled trees obstructing the Charles City Road, a result of the efforts of pioneers from Brig. Gen. Henry W. Slocum's division. Huger had his men spend hours chopping a new road through the thick woods in what became known as the "Battle of the Axes". He failed to take any alternative route, and, fearing a counterattack, failed to participate in the battle. By 4 p.m., Lee ordered Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder to join Holmes on the River Road and attack Malvern Hill, the left flank of the Union line, then ordered him to assist Longstreet, so his division spent the day countermarching. "Stonewall" Jackson moved slowly and spent the entire day north of the creek, making only feeble efforts to cross and attack Franklin's VI Corps in the Battle of White Oak Swamp, attempting to force back the enemy by a fruitless artillery duel so that a destroyed bridge could be rebuilt, even though adequate fords were nearby. (Despite his stunning victories in the recent Valley Campaign, or possibly due to the fatigue of that campaign, Jackson's contributions to the Seven Days were marred by slow execution and poor judgment throughout.) Jackson's presence did cause two of Brig. Gen. John Sedgwick's three brigades, which had been defending the Charles City crossroads, to move north as reinforcements. McCall's division had stopped at Charles City Crossroads on its march to rejoin Porter. Thr gap in the line by Sedgwick was noticed and plugged by his three brigades. Holmes's inexperienced troops (from his Department of North Carolina, attached to the Army of Northern Virginia) made no progress against Porter at Turkey Bridge and Malvern Hill and were repulsed by artillery fire and by the Federal gunboats Galena and Aroostook on the James.

Frayser's Farm Battlefield

Battle of Frayser's Farm, or Glendale, and A. P. Hill's Assault

At 2 p.m., as they waited for sounds of Huger's expected attack, Lee, Longstreet, and visiting Confederate President Jefferson Davis were conferring on horseback when they came under heavy artillery fire, wounding two men and killing three horses. A.P. Hill, commanding in that sector, ordered the president and senior generals to the rear. Longstreet attempted to silence the six batteries of Federal guns firing in his direction, but long-range artillery fire proved to be inadequate. He ordered Col. Micah Jenkins to charge the batteries, which brought on a general fight around 4 p.m

Although belated and not initiated as planned, the assaults by the divisions of A.P. Hill and Longstreet, under Longstreet's overall command, turned out to be the only ones to follow Lee's order to attack the main Union concentration. Longstreet's 20,000 men were not reinforced by the Confederate divisions of Huger and Jackson, despite their concentration within a three-mile 3 miles radius. They assaulted the disjointed Union line of 40,000 men, arranged in a 2 miles arc north and south of the Glendale intersection, but the brunt of the fighting centered on the position held by the Pennsylvania Reserves division of the V Corps, 6,000 men under Brig. Gen. George A. McCall, just west of the Nelson farm, north of Willis Church. (The farm was noww owned by R.H. Nelson, but many locals still called it Frayser's or Frazier's Farm.)[14] McCall's division included the brigades of Brig. Gen. George G. Meade on the right and Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour on the left, with the brigade of Brig. Gen. John F. Reynolds (led by Col. Seneca G. Simmons since Reynolds's capture at Boatswain's Swamp after Gaines's Mill) in reserve.

Three Confederate brigades were sent forward in the assault, from north to south: Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox, Col. Micah Jenkins (Anderson's Brigade), and Brig. Gen. James L. Kemper. Longstreet ordered them forward in a piecemeal fashion, over several hours. Kemper's Virginians charged through the thick woods first and emerged in front of five batteries of McCall's artillery. In their first combat experience, the brigade conducted a disorderly but enthusiastic assault, which carried them through the guns and broke through McCall's main line with Jenkins's support, followed up a few hours later by Wilcox's brigade of Alabamians. The Confederate brigades met stiff resistance from Meade and Seymour in bitter hand-to-hand combat where men stabbed each other with bayonets and used rifles as clubs. Officers even took to using their (normally ornamental) swords as weapons. Meade was wounded in the fighting, two of his artillery batteries captured (Lt. Alanson Randol's and Capt. James Cooper's), but one was retaken. McCall was captured when he mistakenly rode into the Confederate picket line, looking for positions to place his rallied men.

On McCall's northern flank, the division of Brig. Gen. Philip Kearny held against repeated Confederate attacks with reinforcements of Caldwell's brigade and two brigades from Slocum's division. On the southern flank, Brig. Gen. Joseph Hooker's division repelled and once pursued minor attacks. Sedgwick's division, whose brigades had returned from near White Oak Swamp, came up to fill a gap after a brutal counterattack. Heavy fighting continued until about 8:30 p.m. Longstreet committed virtually every brigade in the divisions under his command, while on the Union side they had been fed in individually to plug holes in the line as they occurred.

Battle of Frayser's Farm Battlefield Map

Battle of Frayser's Farm and Longstreet's Assault

Aftermath: The battle was tactically inconclusive, although Lee failed to achieve his objective of preventing the Federal escape and crippling McClellan's army, if not destroying it. Longstreet's performance had been poor, sending in brigade after brigade in a piecemeal fashion, rather than striking with concentrated force in the manner for which he would be known later in the war. He also was not supported by Huger and Jackson, as Lee had planned. Instead of attacking, both generals merely kept their divisions on the north side of White Oak Swamp and launching no action other than an occasional artillery exchange. Union casualties were 3,797 (297 killed, 1,696 wounded, and 1,804 missing or captured). Confederate casualties were comparable in total—3,673 (638 killed, 2,814 wounded, and 221 missing)—but more than 40% higher in killed and wounded. Longstreet lost more than a quarter of his division. Union generals Meade and Edwin V. Sumner and Confederate generals Joseph R. Anderson, Dorsey Pender, and Winfield S. Featherston were wounded.

On the evening of June 30, McClellan, who had witnessed none of the fighting, wired the War Department: "My Army has behaved superbly and have done all that men could do. If none of us escape we shall at least have done honor to the country. I shall do my best to save the Army." He later requested 50,000 reinforcements (which the War Department had no chance of providing). "With them, I will retrieve our fortunes." McClellan has received significant criticism from historians about his detachment from the battle, sailing on the Galena out of touch while his men fought. Ethan Rafuse wrote that after McClellan supervised the deployment of three corps near the Glendale crossroads, what he did next "almost defies belief. ... Even though his men were at the time engaged in a fierce battle near Glendale ... he spent the afternoon on board the Galena, dining with [Captain] Rodgers and traveling briefly up river to watch the gunboat shelling of a Confederate division that had been spotted marching east along the River road toward Malvern Hill." Brian K. Burton wrote that, "more than on any other day, McClellan's judgment on the thirtieth is suspect. He had arranged for signal communications between Malvern Hill and the river but that is a poor substitute. To leave units from five different corps at a vital point with no overall commander is to court disaster." Stephen W. Sears wrote when McClellan deserted his army on the Glendale and Malvern Hill battlefields during the Seven Days, he was guilty of dereliction of duty."

After the battle, Lee wrote, "Could the other commands have cooperated in this action, the result would have proved most disastrous to the enemy." Confederate Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill was even more direct: "Had all our troops been at Frayser's Farm, there would have been no Malvern Hill." Confederate Brig. Gen. Edward Porter Alexander wrote after the war that, "Never, before or after, did the fates put such a prize within our reach. It is my individual belief that on two occasions in the four years, we were within reach of military successes so great that we might have hoped to end the war with our independence. ... The first was at Bull Run [in] July 1861 ... This [second] chance of June 30, 1862 impresses me as the best of all."

Lee would have only one more opportunity to intercept McClellan's army before it reached the safety of the river and the end of the Seven Days, at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1. Part of the battle took place on Gravel Hill, a community established for slaves freed by Quaker Robert Pleasants before 1800. Although what had been once the historic Gravel Hill School had been destroyed, it was replaced by Gravel Hill Baptist Church in 1866, and the community remains close-knit today.

Battle of Frayser's Farm, or Glendale, Battlefield

Battle of Frayser's Farm or Glendale Civil War.jpg

Frayser's Farm Battlefield and Virginia Civil War History.

Battle of Glendale

Battle of Frayser's Farm.jpg

Battle of Frayser's Farm

Analysis: The Peninsula Campaign (also known as the Peninsular Campaign) of the American Civil War (1861–1865) was a major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia, from March through July 1862, and was the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. The operation, commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, was an amphibious turning movement against the Army in Northern Virginia, intended to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. McClellan was initially successful against the equally cautious General Joseph E. Johnston, but the emergence of the aggressive General Robert E. Lee turned the subsequent Seven Days Battles, the last week of the Peninsula Campaign, into a humiliating Union defeat. McClellan would constantly complain to Washington about being outnumbered by Lee, but it was McClellan who actually held a two-to-one advantage. One could argue that McClellan had superior numbers but was operating on inferior intestinal fortitude. In plain speech, the Union general lacked guts. R. E. Lee would unleash an offensive that continued for the remainder of the war. Lee also, on the other hand, had hoped to crush McClellan's much larger army. He and his lieutenants, however, would mishandle numerous opportunities during the Seven Days Battles. The tactical draws that Lee himself amassed during the last week of the Peninsula Campaign would serve as McClellan's lifeline and savior of the Federal's larger Army of the Potomac.

McClellan landed his army at Fort Monroe and moved northwest, up the Virginia Peninsula to begin the campaign. Confederate Brig. Gen. John B. Magruder's defensive position on the Warwick Line caught McClellan by surprise. His hopes for a quick advance foiled, McClellan ordered his army to prepare for a siege of Yorktown. Just before the siege preparations were completed, the Confederates, now under the direct command of Johnston, began a withdrawal toward Richmond. The first heavy fighting of the campaign occurred in the Battle of Williamsburg, in which the Union troops managed some tactical victories, but the Confederates continued their withdrawal. An amphibious flanking movement to Eltham's Landing was ineffective in cutting off the Confederate retreat. In the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, an attempt by the U.S. Navy to reach Richmond by way of the James River was repulsed.

As McClellan's army reached the outskirts of Richmond, a minor battle occurred at Hanover Court House, but it was followed by a surprise attack by Johnston at the Battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. The battle was inconclusive, with heavy casualties, but it had lasting effects on the campaign. Johnston was wounded by a Union artillery shell fragment on May 31 and replaced the next day by the more aggressive Robert E. Lee, who reorganized his army and prepared for offensive action in the final battles of June 25–July 1, which are popularly known as the Seven Days Battles.

The Battle of Glendale, also known as the Battle of Frayser's Farm, Frazier's Farm, Nelson's Farm, Charles City Crossroads, New Market Road, or Riddell's Shop, took place on June 30, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia, on the sixth day of the Seven Days Battles (Peninsula Campaign) of the Civil War.

The Confederate divisions of Maj. Gens. Benjamin Huger, James Longstreet, and A.P. Hill converged on the retreating Union Army in the vicinity of Glendale or Frayser's Farm on the last day of June in 1861. Longstreet's and Hill's attacks penetrated the Union defense near Willis Church. Union counterattacks sealed the break and saved their line of retreat along the Willis Church Road. Huger's advance was stopped on the Charles City Road. The divisions led by Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson were delayed by Brig. Gen. William B. Franklin's corps at White Oak Swamp. Confederate Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes made a feeble attempt to attack the Union left flank at Turkey Bridge but was driven back. This had been Lee's best chance to cut off the Union army from the James River. That night, the Union army established a strong position on Malvern Hill.

Most elements of the Union Army had been able to cross White Oak Swamp Creek by noon on June 30. About one third of the army had reached the James River, but the remainder was still marching between White Oak Swamp and Glendale. After inspecting the line of march that morning, McClellan rode south and boarded the ironclad USS Galena on the James.

Lee ordered his army to converge on the retreating Union forces, bottlenecked on the inadequate road network. The Army of the Potomac, lacking overall command coherence, presented a discontinuous, ragged defensive line. "Stonewall" Jackson was ordered to press the Union rear guard at the White Oak Swamp crossing while the largest part of Lee's army, some 45,000 men, would attack the Army of the Potomac in mid-retreat at Glendale, about 2 miles southwest, splitting it in two. Huger's division would strike first after a three-mile march on the Charles City Road, supported by Longstreet and A.P. Hill, whose divisions were about 7 miles to the west, in a mass attack. Holmes was ordered to capture Malvern Hill.

The Confederate plan was once again marred by poor execution. Huger's men were slowed by felled trees obstructing the Charles City Road, spending hours chopping a new road through the thick woods. Huger failed to take any alternative route, and, fearing a counterattack, failed to participate in the battle. Magruder marched around aimlessly, unable to decide whether he should be aiding Longstreet or Holmes; by 4 p.m., Lee ordered Magruder to join Holmes on the River Road and attack Malvern Hill. "Stonewall" Jackson moved slowly and spent the entire day north of the creek, making only feeble efforts to cross and attack Franklin's VI Corps in the Battle of White Oak Swamp, attempting to rebuild a destroyed bridge, although adequate fords were nearby, and engaging in a pointless artillery duel. Jackson's inaction allowed some units to be detached from Franklin's corps in late afternoon to reinforce the Union troops at Glendale. Holmes's relatively inexperienced troops made no progress against Porter at Turkey Bridge on Malvern Hill, even with the reinforcements from Magruder, and were repulsed by effective artillery fire and by Federal gunboats on the James.

At 2 p.m., as they waited for sounds of Huger's expected attack, Lee, Longstreet, and visiting Confederate President Jefferson Davis were conferring on horseback when they came under heavy artillery fire, wounding two men and killing three horses. A.P. Hill, the commander in that sector, ordered the president and senior generals to the rear. Longstreet attempted to silence the six batteries of Federal guns firing in his direction, but long-range artillery fire proved to be inadequate. He ordered Col. Micah Jenkins to charge the batteries, which brought on a general fight around 4 p.m.

Although belated and not initiated as planned, the assaults by the divisions of A.P. Hill and Longstreet, under Longstreet's overall command, turned out to be the only ones to follow Lee's order to attack the main Union concentration. Longstreet's 20,000 men were not reinforced by other Confederate divisions of Huger and Jackson, despite their concentration within a three-mile radius. They assaulted the disjointed Union line of 40,000 men, arranged in a two-mile arc north and south of the Glendale intersection, but the brunt of the fighting was centered on the position held by the Pennsylvania Reserves division of the V Corps, 6,000 men under Brig. Gen. George A. McCall, just west of the Nelson Farm. (The farm was owned by R.H. Nelson, but its former owner was named Frayser and many of the locals referred to it as Frayser's, or Frazier's, Farm.)

Three Confederate brigades made the assault, but Longstreet ordered them forward in a piecemeal fashion, over several hours. Brig. Gen. James L. Kemper's Virginians charged through the thick woods first and emerged in front of five batteries of McCall's artillery. In their first combat experience, the brigade conducted a disorderly but enthusiastic assault, which carried them through the guns and broke through McCall's main line with Jenkins's support, followed up a few hours later by Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox's Alabamans. The Confederate brigades met stiff resistance in sometimes hand-to-hand combat.

On McCall's flanks, the divisions of Brig. Gen. Joseph Hooker (to the south) and Brig. Gens. Philip Kearny and Henry W. Slocum (to the north), held against repeated Confederate attacks. Brig. Gen. John Sedgwick's division, which had units both in reserve and around White Oak Swamp, came up to fill a gap after a brutal counterattack. Heavy fighting continued until about 8:30 p.m. Longstreet committed virtually every brigade in the divisions under his command, while on the Union side they had been fed in individually to plug holes in the line as they occurred.

The battle was tactically inconclusive, although Lee failed to achieve his objective of preventing the Federal escape and crippling McClellan's army, if not destroying it. Union casualties were 3,797, Confederate about the same at 3,673, but more than 40% higher in killed and wounded. Although Jackson's wing of the army and Franklin's corps comprised tens of thousands of men, the action at White Oak Swamp included no infantry activity and was limited to primarily an artillery duel with few casualties.