Gaines' Mill

In the spring of 1862, George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, more than 100,000 strong, landed at Fort Monroe and fought up the peninsula until it reached the outskirts of Richmond by mid-May, threatening the Confederate capital and raising the possibility of reunion without abolition of slavery. Confederate General Robert E. Lee seized the initiative on June 26 by crossing the Chickahominy River with nearly 45,000 soldiers, opening the Seven Days’ battles. After an unsuccessful attack at Beaver Dam Creek, Jackson’s presence forced McClellan’s men away overnight. On June 27, as McClellan shifted toward a new base on the James River, his rearguard at Gaines’ Mill barely escaped destruction in Lee’s all-out attack, the second and largest battle of the Seven Days. McClellan then organized his retreat in a race to the James River while Lee turned from defending Richmond to pursuing and trying to defeat the Union army. Fighting followed at Gouldin’s Farm, Savage’s Station, and Glendale, where determined Union resistance kept the line of retreat open. On July 1, McClellan’s army held a strong position on Malvern Hill and repulsed poorly coordinated Confederate attacks in a decisive Union victory. The next day, after pursuing the Union army to Harrison’s Landing, Lee found no further offensive opportunity and ended the campaign, having secured Richmond before moving north later that year to victories at Cedar Mountain and Second Manassas and then toward Maryland in the first invasion of the North. At Gaines’ Mill, the preserved battlefield includes the place where General John B. Hood’s Confederate forces first broke the Union line.

Virginia · United States