Seven Pines

In April 1862, Union forces under Gen. George B. McClellan began a major campaign to capture Richmond, marching west from Fort Monroe up the Peninsula between the York and James Rivers toward the Confederate capital. Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, half their number, opposed them. Slowly but inevitably, the Federal juggernaut overcame three Southern defensive lines and was soon captured in Richmond's eastern suburbs. Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ordered his army to make attacks on May 31, 1862 that were designed to push the Union army away from Richmond. The heaviest action took place here along Williamsburg Road as one Confederate thrust struck an isolated wing of the Federal Fourth Corps. Two brigades of Confederate Gen. D.H. Hill's division under Gen. Robert E. Rodes and Gen. Gabriel J. Rains charged toward you. Union Gen. Silas Casey's earthwork, defended by two of his brigades under Gen. Henry W. Wessells and Gen. Innis N. Palmer, blocked the way. Close-quarters fighting raged here until Hill's men broke through and pushed eastward toward the Seven Pines intersection at the present-day national cemetery. Casey wrote that Hill's attack unleashed "the most terrible fire of musketry … that I have ever witnessed." Late in the day, Johnston fell wounded north of here, and the next day Gen. Robert E. Lee took command of the army. Lee then led a Confederate offensive that drove the Union army away during the Seven Days' Battles at the end of June. The clash at Seven Pines was the largest battle fought in Virginia during the first 14 months of the war. More than 70,000 men fought here and the armies suffered at least 10,000 casualties.

Sandston, Virginia · United States