Battle of Glendale

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. Opposed by a Confederate army half their size, they slowly overcame three Southern defensive lines and reached Richmond’s eastern suburbs before Robert E. Lee led an offensive during the Seven Days’ Battles, June 25-July 1, that drove the Union army away. At the Whitlock farm on June 30, 1862, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s division attacked Union Gen. George A. McCall’s Pennsylvania division, putting the Union line in jeopardy. Seeking to plug the widening gap, Gen. Joseph Hooker turned to Gen. Edwin V. Sumner, who sent the 69th Pennsylvania. After fixing bayonets and advancing toward the fighting, the regiment was briefly stalled by a wet ravine, then surged up the slope and charged into Longstreet’s division near the Whitlock house. In a brief, violent engagement, the regiment recaptured several abandoned Union cannons, and the Confederates retreated into the nearby woods. During the night, the Union army continued its withdrawal south and vacated the field, and the next day the two armies clashed again at Malvern Hill. The 69th Pennsylvania lost 7 killed and 34 wounded in the charge; of the 1,007 men who joined in 1861, only 56 were present at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.

Sandston, Virginia · United States