The Peninsula Campaign (also known as the Peninsular Campaign) during the American Civil War was a major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia from March through July 1862, and it was the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. The operation, commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, was an amphibious turning movement intended to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond by circumventing the Confederate States Army in Northern Virginia. 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 into a humiliating Union defeat.

The Seven Days Battles was a series of six major battles over the seven days from June 25 to July 1, 1862, near Richmond, Virginia. On June 1, Lee, having replaced Johnston who was wounded on May 31, drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by McClellan, away from Richmond and into a retreat down the Virginia Peninsula.

The Peninsula Campaign [March-July 1862] consisted of the following battles: Hampton Roads (aka Monitor vs. Virginia, Monitor v. Merrimack, and Battle of the Ironclads), Yorktown, Williamsburg (aka Fort Magruder), Eltham's Landing (aka Barhamsville, West Point), Drewry's Bluff (aka Fort Darling, Fort Drewry), Hanover Court House (aka Slash Church), and Seven Pines (aka Fair Oaks, Fair Oaks Station). The following battles (commonly referred to as the Seven Days Battles or Seven Days Battles Around Richmond) completed or concluded the Peninsula Campaign: Oak Grove (aka French’s Field, King’s School House), Beaver Dam Creek (aka Mechanicsville, Ellerson’s Mill), Gaines' Mill (aka First Cold Harbor), Garnetts & Goldings Farm, Savage's Station, Glendale (aka Nelson’s Farm, Frayser’s Farm, Charles City Crossroads, White Oak Swamp, New Market Road, Riddell's Shop), and Malvern Hill (aka Poindexter’s Farm).

The second phase of the Peninsula Campaign, consequently, took a negative turn for the Union when Lee launched fierce counterattacks just east of Richmond in the Seven Days Battles (June 25 – July 1, 1862). Although they are formally considered part of the Peninsula Campaign, the final battles of June 25 to July 1, with Lee in command and on the offensive against McClellan, are popularly known as the Seven Days Battles.

Instead of advancing through northern Virginia, where McClellan was sure huge rebel armies lurked, the Union commander proposed instead to ship his 121,500-man Army of the Potomac (including 44 artillery batteries, 1,150 wagons, over 15,000 horses, and tons of equipment and supplies) to the tip of the York-James Peninsula by sea, and then fight his way west to Richmond. The Peninsula Campaign began in March 1862 - more than seven months after McClellan took command. McClellan, however, had counted on a larger force and aid from the navy on the James River. The administration withheld 45,000 troops to protect Washington, D.C., and the navy was unable to help because of the menace of the Merrimack and Confederate shore batteries.

McClellan landed his army at Fort Monroe and moved northwest, up the Virginia Peninsula. 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, Battle of Seven Pines, and replaced on June 1 by the more aggressive Robert E. Lee, who reorganized his army and prepared for offensive action in the final battles of June 25 to July 1. (See Seven Days Battles.)

The Three Phases

The Peninsula Campaign [March-July 1862] unfolded in three phases. The early Union advance was marked by Confederate resistance behind entrenchments across the peninsula from Yorktown. On April 5, McClellan besieged Yorktown, which was evacuated on May 3. He then pushed slowly forward, fighting at Williamsburg on May 5, reaching and straddling the Chickahominy River on May 20 and facing a strengthened Confederate force under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston.

Help expected from Union Gen. Irvin McDowell's 40,000 men was lost to McClellan in May when Confederate Gen. T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign scattered or immobilized the Union armies before Washington. The first phase of the campaign ended with the indecisive two-day Battle of Fair Oaks (or Battle of Seven Pines), May 31 and June 1. Johnston was wounded on June 1 and Robert E. Lee succeeded to his command.

Despite claiming victory at Seven Pines, McClellan was shaken by the experience. He redeployed all of his army except for the V Corps south of the river, and although he continued to plan for a siege and the capture of Richmond, he lost the strategic initiative and never regained it. 

After Fair Oaks came the second phase, three weeks without fighting, marked by Confederate Gen. JEB. Stuart's spectacular cavalry raid around the Union army, from June 13-15.

The second phase of the Peninsula Campaign took a negative turn for the Union when Lee launched fierce counterattacks just east of Richmond.

McClellan, reinforced, intended to retake the offensive, but Lee forestalled him and opened the third phase of the campaign by attacking the Union right at Mechanicsville on June 26. This began the Seven Days Battles, during which McClellan had changed his base to the James River, fending off waves of Confederate attacks as the Union Army retreated to its base at Harrison's Landing.

Although none of these battles were significant Confederate tactical victories (and the Battle of Malvern Hill on the last day was a significant Confederate defeat), the tenacity of Lee's attacks and the sudden appearance of Stonewall Jackson's "foot cavalry" on his western flank unnerved McClellan, who withdrew his forces and returned to a base on the James River. With the appointment, during July, of Gen. Henry W. Halleck to command all land forces of the United States, the Army of the Potomac began its withdrawal from the peninsula.

Casualties

Confederate casualties for the Peninsula Campaign (excluding the Seven Days Battles) were approximately 9,500; Union losses exceeded 11,000. Confederate casualties during the Seven Days Battles, furthermore, were approximately 20,000: 3,494 killed, 15,758 wounded, and 952 captured or missing; Union losses were nearly 16,000: 1,734 killed, 8,066 wounded, and 6,055 captured or missing. The Union forces, however, greatly outnumbered the Confederates at the start of the campaign; toward its close, consequently, the opposing forces were nearly equal. Hence, the combined Union and Confederate casualties for the Peninsula Campaign, including the Seven Days Battles, exceeded 56,000. 56,000 is considered a modest total, with some sources indicating casualties as high as 71,000.

McClellan's previous position as general-in-chief of all the Union armies, vacant since March, was filled on July 23, 1862, by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, although McClellan did retain command of the Army of the Potomac. Lee reacted to the performances of his subordinates by a reorganization of his army and by forcing the reassignment of Holmes and Magruder out of Virginia.

In his official report of the campaign Lee stated: "Under ordinary circumstances the Federal Army should have been destroyed. Its escape was due to the want of correct and timely information. This fact, attributable chiefly to the character of the country, enabled Gen. McClellan skillfully to conceal his retreat and to add much to the obstructions with which nature had beset the way of our pursuing columns." But his other objective had been achieved—Richmond was safe, at least for the time being.

McClellan in a letter to his wife: "My conscience is clear at least to this extent—viz.: that I have honestly done the best I could; I shall leave it to others to decide whether that was the best that could have been done—& if they find any who can do better am perfectly willing to step aside & give way."

McClellan, Peninsula Campaign, Civil War, and Lincoln

McClellan's Peninsula Campaign in 1862 ended in failure, with retreats from attacks by General Robert E. Lee's smaller army and an unfulfilled plan to seize the Confederate capital of Richmond. His performance at the bloody Battle of Antietam blunted Lee's invasion of Maryland, but allowed Lee to eke out a precarious tactical draw and avoid destruction, despite being outnumbered. As a result, McClellan's leadership skills during battles were questioned by President Abraham Lincoln, who eventually removed him from command, first as general-in-chief, then from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was famously quoted as saying, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time!"

General McClellan also failed to maintain the trust of Lincoln, and proved to be frustratingly derisive of, and insubordinate to, his commander-in-chief. After he was relieved of command, McClellan became the unsuccessful Democratic nominee opposing Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election.

Lee, Seven Days Battles, and Civil War

At the outbreak of war, Robert E. Lee was appointed to command all of Virginia's forces, but upon the formation of the Confederate States Army, he was named one of its first five full generals. Lee did not wear the insignia of a Confederate general, but only the three stars of a Confederate colonel, equivalent to his last U.S. Army rank. He did not intend to wear a general's insignia until the Civil War had been won and he could be promoted, in peacetime, to general in the Confederate Army.

Lee's first field assignment was commanding Confederate forces in western Virginia, where he was defeated at the Battle of Cheat Mountain and was widely blamed for Confederate setbacks.  He was then sent to organize the coastal defenses along the Carolina and Georgia seaboard, where he was hampered by the lack of an effective Confederate navy. Once again blamed by the press, he became military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, former U.S. Secretary of War. While in Richmond, Lee was ridiculed as the 'King of Spades' for his excessive digging of trenches around the capitol. These trenches, however, would play an important role in battles near the end of the war.

In the spring of 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign, the Union Army of the Potomac under George McClellan advanced upon Richmond from Fort Monroe, eventually reaching the eastern edges of the Confederate capital along the Chickahominy River. Following the wounding of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at the Battle of Seven Pines, on June 1, 1862, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, his first opportunity to lead an army in the field. Newspaper editorials of the day objected to his appointment due to concerns that Lee would not be aggressive and would wait for the Union army to come to him. Early in the war his men also referred to him as "Granny Lee" because of his allegedly timid style of command. After the Seven Days Battles and until the end of the war, however, his men respectfully referred to him as "Marse Robert." Lee oversaw substantial strengthening of Richmond's defenses during the first three weeks of June and then launched a series of attacks, the Seven Days Battles, against McClellan's forces. Lee's attacks resulted in heavy Confederate casualties and they were marred by clumsy tactical performances by his subordinates, but his aggressive actions thwarted McClellan, who retreated to a point on the James River where Union naval forces were in control. These successes led to a rapid turn-around of public opinion and the newspaper editorials quickly changed their tune on Lee's aggressiveness. Following his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee sent a letter of resignation to Pres. Davis on August 8, 1863, but Davis refused Lee's request. On January 31, 1865, Lee was promoted to general-in-chief of Confederate forces.

Peninsula Campaign with Summary Timeline of Principal Events

The Civil War (1861-1865) remains the central, most defining event in American history. Richmond, Virginia, was at the heart of the conflict. As the industrial and political capital of the Confederacy, Richmond was the physical and psychological prize over which two mighty American armies contended in bloody battle from 1861 to 1865. At stake were some of the founding principles of the United States as the growing nation divided over the existence and expansion of slavery. Only after the new Confederacy fired on a federal fort in Charleston harbor and Lincoln had called for troops to preserve the Union, did Virginia join the Confederacy. As war began, neither side anticipated the brutal clashes and home front destruction that brought death or injury to more than one million Americans and devastation to a broad landscape, much of it in Virginia.

(Photograph) Waterfront view of Richmond’s capitol building after the evacuation and fire in 1865.

Cannon boomed within earshot of Richmond. All of its residents saw their lives transformed. Wartime Richmond, swollen by government, the military, refugees, prisoners, and the wounded, lived with anxiety and hope. Martial law and rationing were routine. Disease claimed thousands.

Landowners outside Richmond saw their farms converted into battlefields. Previously unknown place-names like Cold Harbor, Gaines’ Mill, Malvern Hill, and New Market Heights attained national significance for the key battles that were fought in the vicinity of Richmond. Naval military history was made at the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff. Robert E. Lee fought his first battle as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia at Beaver Dam Creek in 1862; Ulysses S. Grant’s army experienced unprecedented futility on the bloody fields of Cold Harbor. Titans tangled repeatedly here. Earthworks scarred miles of farmland. Wheat fields became killing fields. Cemeteries started dotting the landscape. 

(Picture) Virginia State House, used as the Capitol Building, and home of the Naval Department Offices Richmond, VA. 1863.

Situated at the head of navigation on the James River and only 176 kilometers (110 miles) from the Federal capital of Washington, Richmond had been a symbol and a prime psychological objective since the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. If the city were to be captured, southerners might lose their will to resist--so reasoned leaders on both sides. But there were even more compelling reasons why Richmond became a military target, for besides being the political center of the Southern Confederacy, it was a medical and manufacturing center, and the primary supply depot for troops operating on the Confederacy's northeastern frontier.

(Map) Reflects the short distance between the two nations' capitols.

Of the seven major thrusts launched against Richmond, two brought Union forces within sight of the city-George B. McClellan's Peninsular Campaign of 1862, culminating in the Seven Days Battles, and Grant's crushing Overland Campaign of 1864 which ultimately brought the Confederacy tumbling down.

By early 1862, Gen. George B. McClellan had forged around the "cowering regiments" that survived the First Battle of Manassas a ponderous but disciplined 100,000-man fighting machine called the Army of the Potomac. With it he moved by water to invest east central Virginia and capture Richmond. The operation was to have been assisted by an overland assault by troops under Gen. Irvin McDowell and coordinated with a water-borne move up the James River. A Union naval attack was halted on May 15 at Drewry's Bluff and by May 24, when McClellan was deployed within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of the Confederate capital, President Lincoln had become alarmed for Washington's safety and suspended McDowell's movement.

(Photo) Confederate White House (Richmond, VA. 1863), home of Jefferson Davis and where Stephen Mallory attended Cabinet meetings.

Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate commander, now believing that McClellan planned to stay north of the James River, decided to attack. On May 31, Johnston's troops fell on the Federals near Fair Oaks. Although the resulting battle proved indecisive, it did produce significant results for both armies. The already deliberate McClellan was made even more cautious than usual. More important, because of a serious wound sustained by General Johnston during the battle, President Jefferson Davis placed Gen. Robert E. Lee in command of the defending forces.

(Right) Map reflecting the short distance between the capitols of Washington (Washington City as it was referred to at the time) and Richmond.

McClellan, who had maintained a dangerous position astride the Chickahominy River expecting McDowell's corps to join him, hesitated too long. On June 26, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia attacked the Union right flank at Mechanicsville, and then suffered heavy losses in futile attacks against the strong Union positions on Beaver Dam Creek. Thus began the Seven Days Battles, a series of sidestepping withdrawals and holding actions that climaxed the Peninsular Campaign at Malvern Hill and enabled the Union army to avoid disaster by circling east of Richmond to the security of Federal gunboats on the James River at Harrison's Landing. When the Seven Days ended, some 35,000 soldiers, north and south, were casualties, and many on both sides probably shared the view of a young Georgian who wrote home: "I have seen, heard and felt many things in the last week that I never want to see, hear nor feel again...." 

(Historical Marker) Tredegar Iron Works: By 1860, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the largest of its kind in the South, a fact that played a significant role in the decision to relocate the capital of the Confederacy from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond in May 1861. Tredegar supplied high-quality munitions to the South during the war: manufactured railroad steam locomotives in the same period; produced the iron plating for the first Confederate ironclad warship, the CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimack) which fought in the historic Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862; credited with the production of approximately 1,100 artillery pieces during the war which was about half of the South's total domestic production of artillery between the war years of 1861-1865; and  even produced a giant rail-mounted siege cannon during the conflict. This historic iron foundry in Richmond, Virginia, is now the location of a museum known as The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

For two years, while the armies fought indecisively in northern Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, Richmond entrenched and applauded Lee's unbroken successes in keeping northern armies at bay. In March 1864, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command of all Union armies in the field. Attaching himself to the Army of the Potomac, then under the command of Gen. George Gordon Meade, Grant embarked on an unyielding campaign against Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia. Said Lee: "We must stop this army of Grant's before he gets to the James River. If he gets there it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere matter of time."

In a series of flanking movements designed to cut Lee off from the Confederate capital, the Union army slipped past the southerners at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna River, and Totopotomoy Creek, although it suffered heavy casualties. At Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864, Grant's massive frontal assaults against the strongly entrenched Confederate lines failed dismally, with appalling casualties. For 10 days the badly bruised Federals and hungry Confederates broiled in the trenches under 100-degree heat; then Grant silently withdrew, crossed the James River, and drove toward the important rail center of Petersburg, south of Richmond. 

Throughout the late summer and fall Grant continued to threaten the outer defenses protecting Richmond and Petersburg. Several major assaults met with partial success, including the capture of Fort Harrison in September 1864. Winter weather eventually brought active operations to a close. Life in the trenches around the besieged cities became routine and humdrum. Just finding enough to eat and keeping warm became constant preoccupations.

Grant's successful siege of Petersburg over the winter of 1864-65 forced Lee to retreat westward from that city on April 2, 1865. The following day, soon after dawn, Richmond's mayor, Joseph C. Mayo, delivered the following message to the commander of the Union forces waiting to enter the Confederate capital: "The Army of the Confederate Government having abandoned the City of Richmond, I respectfully request that you will take possession of it with organized force, to preserve order and protect women and children and property." 

(Drawing) Contemporary drawing of a Confederate 10-pounder Parrott rifle made by Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, Virginia. Robert Parrott invented this capable iron rifle, it was made in several sizes, and because cast iron guns occasionally exploded, the Parrott had a wrought iron reinforcing band around the breech.

April 3, 1865. "As the sun rose on Richmond, such a spectacle was presented as can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it... All the horrors of the final conflagration, when the earth shall be wrapped in 'flames and melt with fervent heat, were, it seemed to us, prefigured in our capital. The roaring, crackling and hissing of the flames, the bursting of shells at the Confederate Arsenal, the sounds of the Instruments of martial music, the neighing of the horses, the shoutings of the multitudes... gave an idea of all the horrors of Pandemonium. Above all this scene of terror, hung a black shroud of smoke through which the sun shone with a lurid angry glare like an immense ball of blood that emitted sullen rays of light, as if loath to shine over a scene so appalling. ... [Then] a cry was raised: 'The Yankees! The Yankees are coming!'"

Thus did Sallie Putnam, who had lived in Richmond throughout the war, recall the final disastrous hours of the city whose existence preoccupied northerner and southerner alike through four bitter, bloody years and whose final subjugation signaled the beginning of the end for the Confederate States of America. 

On April 4 and 5, 1865, President Lincoln made a remarkable visit to Richmond as he pressed to conclude the war that had cost more than 620,000 lives “with malice toward none, with charity for all…” His assassination, just days later, portended a less charitable course for the aftermath.

Upon evacuation of the city, the Confederate government authorized the burning of warehouses and supplies, which resulted in considerable damage to factories and houses in the business district. Before the charred ruins of Richmond had cooled, Lee, with the remnant of his army, surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The collapse of the Confederacy followed swiftly.

Today, the Richmond National Battlefield Park preserves more than 1900 acres of Civil War resources in 13 units, including the main visitor center at the famous Tredegar Iron Works and the Chimborazo Medical Museum, on the site of Chimborazo Hospital.