Peninsula Campaign
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Categories: Battles of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War | History of Richmond, Virginia | Richmond National Battlefield Park
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For the campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, see Peninsular War.
Image:McClellan+Johnston.jpg
McClellan and Johnston of the Peninsula Campaign
The Peninsula Campaign (also known as the Peninsular Campaign) of the American Civil War was a major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia from March through July 1862, 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 General Robert E. Lee changed the character of the campaign and turned it into a humiliating Union defeat. McClellan landed his army at Fort Monroe and moved northwest, up the Virginia Peninsula. Confederate Brig. Gen. John B. Magruder had constructed three defensive lines across the narrow peninsula. The first, the Warwick Line, extending from Yorktown to Mulberry Island, 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 and replaced on June 1 by the more aggressive Robert E. Lee, who reorganized his army and prepared for offensive action. 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, and are described in their own article.
BackgroundMcClellan spent the winter of 1861–62 training his new Army of the Potomac and fighting off calls from President Abraham Lincoln to advance against the Confederates. Lincoln was particularly concerned about the army of General Joseph E. Johnston at Centreville, just 30 miles (50 km) from Washington, D.C. McClellan greatly overestimated Johnston's strength and shifted his objective from that army to the Confederate capital of Richmond. He proposed to move by water to Urbanna on the Rappahannock River and then overland to Richmond before Johnston could move to block him. Although Lincoln favored the overland approach because it would shield Washington from any attack while the operation was in progress, McClellan argued that the road conditions in Virginia were intolerable, that he had arranged adequate defenses for the capital, and that Johnston would certainly follow him if he moved on Richmond. This plan was discussed for three months in the capital until Lincoln approved McClellan's proposal in early March. By March 9, however, Johnston withdrew his army from Centreville to Culpeper, making McClellan's Urbanna plan impracticable. Little Mac then proposed to sail to Fort Monroe and then up the Virginia Peninsula (the narrow strip of land between the James and York Rivers) to Richmond. Lincoln reluctantly agreed. Before departing for the Peninsula, McClellan moved the Army of the Potomac to Centreville on a "shakedown" march. He discovered there how weak Johnston's force and position had really been, and faced mounting criticism. On March 11, Lincoln's War Order No. 3 relieved McClellan of his position as general-in-chief of the Union armies, so that he could devote his full attention to the difficult campaign ahead of him. The Army of the Potomac began to embark for Fort Monroe on March 17. Opposing forcesThe Army of the Potomac had approximately 50,000 men at Fort Monroe when McClellan arrived, but this number grew to 121,500 before hostilities began. Transporting these men, almost 15,000 horses and mules, and 1,150 wagons was an enormous task. It required 113 steamships, 188 schooners, and 88 barges. The army was organized into three corps and other units, as follows:
On the Confederate side, Johnston's Army of Northern Virginia (newly named as of March 14[1]) was organized into three wings, each composed of several brigades, as follows:
However, at the time the Army of the Potomac arrived, only Magruder's 13,000 men faced them on the Peninsula. The bulk of Johnston's force (43,000 men) were at Culpeper, 6,000 under Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes at Fredericksburg, and 9,000 under Major General Benjamin Huger at Norfolk. In Richmond, General Robert E. Lee had returned from work on coastal fortifications in the Carolinas and on March 13 became the chief military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Forces in the Shenandoah Valley played an indirect role in the campaign. Approximately 50,000 men under Maj. Gens. Nathaniel P. Banks and Irvin McDowell were engaged chasing a much smaller force under Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign. Jackson's expert maneuvering and tactical success in small battles kept the Union men from reinforcing McClellan, much to his dismay. He had planned to have 30,000 under McDowell to join him. BattlesImage:PeninsulaCampaign.png
Peninsula Campaign, map of events up to the Battle of Seven Pines
Hampton Roads caused a newfound sense of concern because the Army's transport ships could be attacked by this new weapon directly in their path. And the U.S. Navy failed to assure McClellan that they could protect operations on either the James or the York, so his plan of amphibiously enveloping Yorktown was abandoned, and he ordered an advance up the Peninsula to begin April 4. On April 5, McClellan learned that McDowell's corps would not be joining him at Fort Monroe. In addition to the pressure of Jackson's Valley Campaign, President Lincoln believed that McClellan had left insufficient force to guard Washington and that the general had been deceptive in his reporting of unit strengths, counting troops as ready to defend Washington when they were actually deployed elsewhere. McClellan protested that he was being forced to lead a major campaign without his promised resources, but he moved ahead anyway.
On May 9, the isolated Confederate force at Norfolk, facing the large Union force across Hampton Roads, evacuated the city and naval base. On May 11, the CSS Virginia was blown up to prevent its capture by the U.S. Navy. President Lincoln witnessed this part of the campaign, having arrived at Fort Monroe on May 6 in the company of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase on the Treasury Department's revenue cutter Miami. Lincoln believed that the city of Norfolk was vulnerable and that control of the James was possible, but McClellan was too busy at the front to meet with the president. Exercising his direct powers as commander in chief, Lincoln ordering naval bombardments of Confederate batteries in the area on May 8 and set off in a small boat with his two Cabinet secretaries to conduct a personal reconnaissance on shore. Troops under the command of Maj. Gen. John E. Wool, the elderly commander of Fort Monroe, occupied Norfolk on May 10, encountering little resistance.[2]
Denied his coveted approach to Richmond via the James River, McClellan established a supply base on the Pamunkey River (a navigable tributary of the York River) at White House Landing where the Richmond and York River Railroad extending to Richmond crossed the river. He commandeered the railroad, transporting steam locomotives and rolling stock to the site by barge. Over the next three weeks. he edged cautiously toward Richmond. On May 18, he reorganized the Army of the Potomac in the field and promoted two major generals to corps command: Fitz John Porter to the new V Corps and William B. Franklin to the VI Corps. The army had 105,000 men in position northeast of the city, outnumbering Johnston's 60,000, but faulty intelligence from the detective Allan Pinkerton on McClellan's staff caused the general to believe that he was outnumbered two to one. Numerous skirmishes between the lines of the armies occurred from May 23 to May 26. Tensions were high in the city, particularly following the earlier sounds of the naval gun battle at Drewry's Bluff.
Aftermath and the Seven DaysGeneral McClellan chose to abandon his offensive operations, to lay siege and await reinforcements he had requested from President Lincoln. He never regained his strategic momentum (for his involvement in the entire war, in fact). Lee used the month-long pause in McClellan's advance to fortify the defenses of Richmond and extend them south to the James River at Chaffin's Bluff. On the south side of the James River, defensive lines were built south to a point below Petersburg. The total length of the new defensive line was about 30 miles (50 km). To buy time to complete the new defensive line and prepare for an offensive, Lee repeated the tactic of making a small number of troops seem larger than they really were. McClellan was also unnerved by Jeb Stuart's audacious (but otherwise militarily pointless) cavalry ride completely around the Union army (June 13–June 15). The second phase of the Peninsula Campaign 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 none of these battles were significant Confederate tactical victories (and the Battle of Malvern Hill on the last day was a decisive 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 pulled his forces back to a base on the James River. Lincoln later ordered the army to return to the Washington, D.C., area to support General John Pope's army in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run. The Virginia Peninsula was relatively quiet until May 1864, when Benjamin Butler again invaded as part of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign. See alsoReferences
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