Battle of Savage’s Station

On the night of June 27, 1862, following the Battle of Gaines’ Mill, Gen. George McClellan ordered his Union army to withdraw to the James River. As the army retreated, Savage’s Station, which had served during the previous month as the army’s advance supply base on the Richmond and York River Railroad, was ordered abandoned, and its immense stockpiles of equipment, ordnance, and commissary stores were to be destroyed. Hoping to catch McClellan on the move, Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered an attack there on June 29, and in the late afternoon Confederate troops under Gen. John B. Magruder encountered the Federal rear guard near the station. In a twilight battle, Union forces under Gen. Edwin V. “Bull” Sumner held back the Southern assaults while McClellan proceeded southward. When darkness ended the fighting, 444 Confederates and 919 Northerners had been counted as casualties. That night, Sumner withdrew from the station and followed McClellan south across White Oak Swamp.

Virginia · United States