Embarkation The movement to the Peninsula actually began on 17 March, when elements of Heintzelman's III Corps were embarked at Alexandria. Morale was high, the troops understood McClellan's concept and had faith in it. Confidence was boosted by the awesome display of sea power at hand. Some of the vessels may have been decrepit, but together they represented a sealift capability that was one of the most dramatic manifestations of the North's industrial and economic superiority. Tucker correctly called it a maritime undertaking "without parallel on record." In twenty days the fleet transported 121,500 men, 44 artillery batteries, 1,150 wagons, and nearly 15,600 horses and mules. In addition to normal rations, the Army of the Potomac was also provided with a herd of beef cattle that accompanied the supply trains. The transport fleet gave the Union not just the ability transport a large number of soldiers from Point A to Point B, but was also able to sustain them for a protracted period. With the army was France's Prince de Joinville. At Fort Monroe he counted ships by the hundred, with twenty or twenty-five big transports, packed with troops, waiting to unload. Another observer, an Englishman, called the fleet's movement "the stride of a giant." The adjutant general certified that on 1 April 1862 the Army of the Potomac had, including support troops, 158,419 soldiers, and McClellan felt he needed every single one of them to take Richmond. Defending Washington? McClellan left Washington rather weakly defended, with 22,410 troops under Wadsworth, but few fit for active duty. To prevent the Administration from diverting units from the Army of the Potomac to Washington, McClellan lied to his superiors, trying to make Wadsworth's troops appear to be of higher quality, when in fact most were raw recruits. This was a poor way to earn the trust that McClellan so continually demanded, and when Lincoln and his advisers discovered this creative accounting they were highly alarmed. Besides being a bald lie, it was also disobedience of Lincoln's order that Washington be adequately defended. According to Senator Charles Sumner, the President was "just indignant." The result was that Lincoln did just what McClellan had tried to forestall. He retained McDowell's I Corps of 38,454 in northern Virginia, a decision that McClellan came to blame for all of his later troubles. Actually, he should have looked in a mirror fir the culprit, since it was his attempt to play his superiors for fools that led to the loss of McDowell. He also should have realized, especially in light of the corps organization controversy, that more troops were going to be left behind, and that it would have been better for this to be on his terms, and not the Administration's. In addition, on 31 March Lincoln detached Louis Blenker's division for service under the pompous, mediocre John C. Frémont for an offensive into eastern Tennessee. Other Problems McClellan arrived at Fort Monroe on 2 April, and was presented with yet another unwelcome surprise. He expected to have under his command Brigadier General John Wool and his garrison of about 10,000. Instead, he discovered that the day before arriving, Washington had withdrawn Wool from his command, advising McClellan that he would need the elderly Wool's permission to use his troops. As humiliating as this was McClellan still had 53,000 of his own men and a hundred guns on the Peninsula, with more arriving all the time. Furthermore, Wool offered his full support and cooperation, though events would prove that he was not willing to compromise his own command prerogatives by acceding to McClellan's every wish. Another problem was that McClellan was unable to enjoy the full measure of naval support he expected. He had counted on the Monitor to help with offensive operations, but the navy regarded her as the only dependable counter to the Virginia. This meant that they were determined to keep the Monitor back to defend the transports, and not risk losing her. McClellan knew that there were Confederate batteries on both sides of the York at Yorktown and Gloucester, and recognized them as the keys to the river. Instead of a prolonged siege by the army, McClellan wanted to neutralize them with a massive naval bombardment. This was precluded by the Virginia's mere existence. The commander of the Hampton Roads blockading squadron, Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, said that he needed all of his most powerful ships, including the Monitor, to guard the transport fleet, leaving only a few small gunboats to attack up the York. Even then, their guns could not be elevated sufficiently to reach the Yorktown bluffs. Goldsborough was willing to assist with any army landings to turn the positions, but a frontal naval attack was out of the question. As for the James River, the Virginia was there, eliminating any chance for naval movement up that river. McClellan later criticized Goldsborough as "too timid," an ironic indictment in light of his own service record. But the naval officer's concern was valid, considering the initial impressions made by the Virginia, and the damage recently inflicted on armored gunboats at Forts Henry and Donelson. Goldsborough had to plan with Confederate capabilities in mind, and even if the Virginia was not the wonder weapon perceived by Stanton, or even a real equal to the Monitor, her ample capabilities had been demonstrated. Advance Despite all this, McClellan vowed, "The grass will not grow under my feet," and headed west. The army met its first opposition along the Warwick River, a line held by the enemy and anchored at Yorktown. It was manned by about 11,000 soldiers, with 6,000 or so holding Yorktown, and the rest spread dangerously thin across the Peninsula. Moreover, their fortifications were generally weak, though the Confederates made full use of the British works built by Cornwallis for his siege in 1783. Dams on the Warwick enhanced it as a moat. It should have been easy for McClellan to punch through this screen, and no one knew this better than Major General John Bankhead Magruder, the Southern commander. He had no confidence that his Army of the Peninsula could hold back the Federals, and aimed only to delay them temporarily. A Matter of Stagecraft Magruder was one of the most eccentric characters in a war filled with colorful leaders. Feeling that "John B." was too prosaic a name, he went by "J. Bankhead," though due to his fascination with ceremony and lavish entertainment he was nicknamed "Prince John." By whatever name, he was a devotee of amateur theater, and was reputed to fight occasional battles with alcohol which he usually lost. Magruder put his dramatic talents to work. He marched his troops so much and in so many directions that his opponents thought he had between 15,000 and 20,000, not 11,000. The Siege of Yorktown McClellan's first instinct was to bypass Yorktown and maintain his momentum toward Richmond. But between Magruder's ruse, Allan Pinkerton's outdated and altogether bad intelligence, and McClellan's own half-hearted personal reconnaissance, he decided to invest the line with a full, formal siege. The massive Army of the Potomac halted before the brittle Warwick River line and began the lengthy preparations for siege. An English observer said that the stride of the giant "had become the step of a dwarf." McClellan now found out that he would not be receiving I Corps, and he was furious. Lincoln was not pleased with his general either. "I think you had better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to the Warwick River at once. They [the Confederates] will probably use time as advantageously as you can." It was simply a reminder of McClellan's own reasoning when first planning his seaborne move. The general reacted tartly in a letter to his wife: "I was much tempted to reply that he had better come down and do it himself." Southern Response Joe Johnston was not idle. On 14 April he attended a conference in Richmond with President Jefferson Davis, Davis' military adviser General Robert E. Lee, George W. Randolph, the new Secretary of War, and Major Generals Gustavus W. Smith and James Longstreet. Smith felt that the South had two options. First, it could mass against McClellan once he had ventured beyond the range of his naval support, and so destroy the Army of the Potomac. Second, and much closer to his heart, was to wait until McClellan actually laid siege to Richmond, then quickly advance on Washington and Baltimore, or even Philadelphia and New York. It tended to ignore the probability that when the Army of the Potomac followed, it would be through Richmond and then up the Confederate lines of communication. Johnston preferred Smith's first, more practical proposal, and he too advocated a concentrated attack on the Army of the Potomac. For his part Longstreet wanted an attack on Washington, provided that Magruder could keep McClellan occupied. To this Davis offered one of the least accurate character assessments of the war. He admonished Longstreet not to underrate McClellan's initiative and aggressiveness. Randolph opposed Johnston's plan because the main attack entailed withdrawing from Norfolk first. A former naval officer, the Secretary did not want to concede the navy yard. Lee agreed, though his concern was that drawing units from the Carolinas and Georgia would expose Charleston and Savannah to amphibious attack. Moreover, he believed that conditions on the Peninsula gave a small army advantages over a larger, more unwieldy one. Davis decided in Lee's favor. Johnston's army would join Magruder's, and on 17 April Johnston took charge of the defense of Richmond, with 56,500 troops in al. Both Yorktown and Norfolk were to be held as long as possible, with the help of the Confederate navy. Even now, before taking command himself, Lee had an important but understated role. First, it was his thinking that ultimately determined the Confederate strategy. Second, Davis and Johnston had a strained relationship, and Lee was instrumental as a buffer between them, ensuring that personal incompatibility would not undermine the campaign. Back At Yorktown McClellan's first impressions of Lee were just as wrong as Davis' high opinion of McClellan. The Union general had a low opinion of his future antagonist, considering him an inferior commander to Joe Johnston, ironically calling Lee "too cautious & weak under grave responsibility." Committed to besieging Yorktown and having lost his opportunity to break through quickly, McClellan did what he did best: supervising preparations, and continuously demanding reinforcements. He had every reason to believe that once the siegeworks were in place, he could rapidly overcome any resistance, as his train included 114 big guns, howitzers and mortars, some of incredible size. By contrast, Magruder's artillery was less numerous and more heterogeneous, with some of the heavy pieces taken from the Norfolk navy yard. McClellan's calls for reinforcements were strident and based on Pinkerton's imaginative troop counts. On 7 April McClellan wired that he had only 85,000 men fit for duty, but six days later McClellan told the adjutant general that he really had 100,970, with a total of 117,721 troops. It was a discrepancy not entirely accounted for by new arrivals. Accordingly, the Administration decided to send Franklin's division of McDowell's I Corps to the Peninsula. The Army of the Potomac was stationary but not inactive. Besides the work of construction, Union snipers were harassing Confederates from the tops of pine trees. Magruder's Texas marksmen would then venture into the brush to do what they called "squirrel hunting," returning with a report of how many "squirrels" had been taken. Also, on 16 April a small Union reconnaissance was made near the center of the enemy line. Four Vermont companies managed to take a Confederate redoubt, but had to pull back when support was not forthcoming. Termed the Battle of Lee's Mill, this minor action accomplished little besides projecting a salient into the rebel lines, though a more aggressive commander could have made more from it. McClellan remained as convinced as ever that siege artillery was the only answer. More than "squirrel hunting" or any other form of enemy action, the real scourge of the Army of the Potomac was disease. The swampy lowland of the Peninsula was a breeding ground for a wide variety of illnesses, made worse by the torrential rains marking much of the campaign. Disease was so rampant that during the siege of Yorktown, one Union surgeon estimated that 20% of the army was affected. Even McClellan was not immune, coming down with an attack of malaria, which he called his "Mexican disease," for a week before the Battle of Fair Oaks and Seven Pines. For the people of Richmond, panic was setting in as they faced the prospect that before long the city would be under siege. On 16 April, the Confederacy felt compelled by events to introduce conscription. The Union gun emplacements and other siege works neared completion, and McClellan finalized his plan for breaching the line. First, there would be a monumental artillery bombardment, followed by an infantry assault. Then William B. Franklin's recently division would make an amphibious landing to the Confederate rear to turn the flank and cut off retreat. It was a good plan, taking full advantage of the Union's great advantages in artillery firepower and amphibious warfare. Joe Johnston saw that a clash was approaching, and knew that it was one he could not win. Covered by heavy artillery fire to disrupt Federal observation attempts, on 3 May he pulled out of the line. Professor T. S. C. Lowe, sent a Union balloon aloft, but it too drew a hail of fire. Even so, the Federals duly noted that Johnston was leaving, and on 4 May McClellan ordered Sumner to organize a pursuit. A short and uncoordinated rearguard action was fought near Williamsburg, in which McClellan had no part, as he was busy supervising the embarkation of Franklin's division. Two days later Franklin conducted an opposed landing at West Point, far up the river. Shallow water prevented the navy gunboats from getting in close at first to suppress fire on the civilian transports. Again, Lowe used a balloon but was unable to contribute any meaningful intelligence. In any case Franklin made it ashore, and the next day repulsed a counterattack on his beachhead. Content to retain the field, he did not pursue. Johnston continued his retreat without interference, and McClellan moved to effect a link up with Franklin. Wool kept his eyes on Norfolk, held by Brigadier General Benjamin Huger, and waited for a chance to take it. With Yorktown evacuated, McClellan called upon Wool to assist with the pursuit, but Wool declined, wishing to keep his troops close at hand should he have an opportunity to strike at Norfolk. Assault on Norfolk He got that chance. A Northern-officered ship pressed into Confederate service, the J. B. White, defected to the Union on 8 May. Her officers told Wool that the city was being speedily evacuated. Lincoln happened to be visiting at the time, and he gave Wool his blessing to take Norfolk. An immediate landing was repulsed with the help of the Virginia, but a second on 11 May succeeded. By one report, it was preceded by a personal reconnaissance by Lincoln. Unfortunately, Huger had the time to do a thorough job of demolition and destruction at the navy yard before it fell into Union hands. With Yorktown and Norfolk gone, the Virginia was a ship without a port. On 9 May, after covering Huger's retreat, she was burned by her crew. McClellan slogged up the Peninsula. His slow pursuit was a matter of concern to his superiors, but he was operating under two major handicaps. One was a shortage of supply wagons, something which would dog the Army of the Potomac throughout the campaign. Also, the roads were poor, and contrary to Rush Hawkins' reports, not conducive to travel in heavy rains. Johnston was not ready to stop his retreat prematurely. This concerned Davis and Lee, who worried that he was allowing the enemy to approach too closely to Richmond. When he did halt, some of Johnston's 53,688 men were in the eastern suburbs, and the Army of the Potomac was within striking distance of the capital. The days of the Confederate States of America appeared numbered. Searching for the Jugular The navy tried to strike the killing blow on 15 May. Led by the Monitor and the armored sloop USS Galena, a Union flotilla ascended the James. Opposing it was a series of obstructions and shore batteries at Drewry's Bluff. The heights proved too high and the Confederate gunfire too intense, and the Union ships were halted. The same day the Army of the Potomac captured White House, on the Pamunkey River. A plantation once belonging to Martha Washington and then to the Lee family, and the home of Mrs. Robert E. Lee during the first stages of the Peninsular Campaign. Before helping Mrs. Lee get to Richmond, McClellan gallantly put her and the estate under his protection, part of his effort to safeguard civilian property that the more vindictive majority found distasteful. This did not prevent him from establishing his headquarters on the property, and using its landing as his supply base. McClellan spent three days there, reorganizing his army into six corps: McDowell's I Corps, still in northern Virginia; II Corps, Sumner; III Corps, Heintzelman; IV Corps, Keyes; and two new ones, V Corps, under Fitz John Porter, and VI Corps, led by Franklin. Obstructing the Union advance was the Chickahominy River. Normally a placid little stream, it had been swelled by downpours into a raging torrent, inundating a wide and swampy area. As they retreated, the Confederates had burned the bridges behind them, and each now had to be rebuilt by Union engineers. On 20 May, the 2nd Division, III Corps under Brigadier General Silas Casey forded the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge, followed by Heintzelman's corps, which pushed a small body of rebels out of Seven Pines. Now, the Army of the Potomac straddled the river. McClellan prepared for what he thought would be the final nail in the secessionist coffin; an overland march by McDowell's corps. On the 18th McClellan was ordered to extend his right northward, to meet I Corps, and to supply it from White House Landing. Stonewall Arrives But Stonewall Jackson intervened. Pious to the point of obsession, eccentric, taciturn and a hypochondriac, McClellan's West Point classmate was also a stone cold killer. A fast marcher and hard hitter as well, this made him something of a miracle worker in the Shenandoah, badly beating more numerous enemies and diverting forces from more critical areas, starting with the Peninsula. Now Thomas Jonathan Jackson did it again. On 25 May McDowell had four bridges across the Rappahannock to carry his corps southward. On the same day, Jackson crushed Banks at Winchester. McDowell commenced his march. By nightfall two days later, his vanguard was just twenty-five miles from the wing of the Army of the Potomac. During a terrible thunderstorm the next night, Johnston and his division commanders met to iron out the details of an impending attack on McClellan's extended and exposed right. But during the conference, even as some units made their way to the jumping-off points, word arrived that McDowell was turning back. In the wake of Winchester, the Administration viewed the danger to the North to be too acute, and ordered McDowell hack. As a result, Johnston's attack was also canceled. "The time is very near when I shall attack ..." According to the official report, McClellan now had 127,166 troops in all, with 98,008 fit for duty, an imposing force. But he was still laboring under the misconception that the Confederates had double his strength, and he continued to demand further reinforcement. Neither McDowell's nor anyone else's units were on their way to him, however, and Lincoln cabled: "I think the time is near when you must either attack Richmond or give up the job and come to the defense of Washington." Waiting for the new bridges over the Chickahominy to be completed, McClellan wired back: "The time is very near when I shall attack Richmond." But outside of Porter's cutting of the Virginia Central Railroad on 27 May, not much was done. Johnston took the initiative, scheduling a concentrated attack for 31 May against Heintzelman and Keyes who were dug in along the Williamsburg Road south of the Chickahominy. Longstreet was to lead the attack, with his and A. P. Hill's divisions in two lines. Huger, who had never before participated in a battle, was to move down the Charles City Road and strike to the left. Gustavus Smith was to intercept any Federals able to cross the river in an attempt to reinforce III and IV Corps. Heavy rains the day and night before the attack hindered both sides' movement. On 31 May the assault had to be delayed because one Southern division could not get across a creek. Then at one o'clock in the afternoon, the biggest battle in the East so far began. Seven Pines D. H. Hill hit Keyes, with a pair of brigades concentrating on Casey's division, about a mile west of Seven Pines. In a tough fight the Federals were pushed back to a line near Seven Pines, held by Brigadier General Darius Couch's 1st Division, IV Corps. Also joining in was Brigadier General Philip Kearney's division of III Corps, but counterattacks by Casey and Kearney were repulsed. The action at nearby Fair Oaks was smaller but less favorable to the Confederates. Smith cut off four of Couch's regiments and a battery. McClellan committed Sumner's II Corps from his reserve and they made it to the battlefield, despite partially submerged bridges. Smith went on the attack, but Sumner launched a bayonet charge that broke the Rebels and ended the battle. Johnston ordered his men to rest on the field and continue the fight, poorly coordinated so far, in the morning. Then at seven o'clock, he was hit by a bullet and knocked off his horse by a piece of shell to the chest. Johnston was taken away in an ambulance, and command fell to Smith. But Smith was in no shape to lead an army — he was close to a nervous breakdown. When he renewed the attack on Sunday, 1 June he made such a poor start that Longstreet blamed him for blowing a golden opportunity to decisively beat McClellan. Longstreet however was not above reproach. His failure to adhere to the proper march route had led to the delay, and he then failed to act aggressively on 1 June, feeling that the Federals were about to attack him. Numerically, the Battle of Seven Pines was a draw. There were 41,797 Union and 41,816 Confederate soldiers engaged, and the respective losses were similarly close, at 5,031 and 6,134. But Joe Johnston's injury was one of the pivotal events of the campaign, and indeed of the war. Unfit for such grave responsibility, Smith was also, like Johnston, feuding with Jefferson Davis. He was quickly replaced by Davis' trusted adviser, Robert E. Lee. Lee Takes Command Seven Pines was the turning point of the Peninsular Campaign because it resulted in Lee's ascension to command. Joe Johnston was a highly capable general, but one who harbored a deep (and perfectly understandable) fear of the Army of the Potomac's numbers and resources. Though Johnston's plan to attack the Federal army shows that he was not lacking in offensive spirit, it was a strategy that more reflected the desperate quandary in which he found himself, and was adopted not because he had undying confidence in his troops' ability to attack, but because he did not believe them capable of standing up to the full force of the Union siege artillery. It was a case of attacking, lest the enemy have a chance to play his trump, and even then a counterattack did not insure that Richmond would not be eventually besieged. Lee had different reasons for taking the initiative. He too saw the Army of the Potomac as an unstoppable force, that is when McClellan had it moving, and was equally respectful of its firepower. Like Johnston, Lee was determined to save Richmond by attacking the Federals. But whereas Johnston was motivated in large part by fear, Lee saw opportunity as well, especially on the Union right. McClellan in the Peninsula McClellan in the Peninsula: Background and Organization McClellan in the Peninsula: The Advance up the Peninsula McClellan in the Peninsula: The Seven Days McClellan in the Peninsula: Conclusions Back to Cry Havoc #12 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com