On this ridge overlooking the Chickahominy River, General Lee, President Davis, and other prominent Confederate officers gathered to await the opening of the operations later called the Seven Days Campaign. They expected “Stonewall” Jackson’s 20,000-man army to get behind the Union position near Mechanicsville and force the Federal Fifth Corps out of its defenses, after which General A. P. Hill would clear the river crossings so the bulk of Lee’s army could unite with Jackson and threaten the Richmond & York River Railroad, then the main Union supply line. Unanticipated obstacles delayed Jackson, and late on the afternoon of June 26, 1862, Hill forced a crossing two miles upriver from here and captured Mechanicsville. Hill’s success allowed Lee to transfer the troops assembled at Chickahominy Bluff to the northern bank of the river, and shortly before sunset fragments of the Confederate army launched attacks just east of Mechanicsville at the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek.
