June 30, 1862

June 30, 1862:

Eastern Theater, Peninsula Campaign

Seven Days’ Battles - Day 6

 

Battles of Glendale (Frayser’s Farm):  McClellan having given Lee the slip and successfully escaped out of the crossroads at Savage’s Station with his wagon trains intact, Lee now assigns the pursuit of the Federals to Gen. Stonewall Jackson---who, although he has shown none of the alacrity of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, still possesses the confidence of the commanding general.  But as Jackson’s men pass through Savage’s Station, they slow down to browse the mountains of supplies left by the Federals, especially the food, since Jackson’s men had been notoriously under-rationed for nearly a month.  Jackson pushes onward, and finds the bridge across the creek at White Oak swamp, to the north of and directly to the rear of the Federal rear guard force, has been burned, and Yankee artillery and small arms fire prevent Jackson from sending in a force to re-build it.

Lee's planned attack

    Meanwhile, Lee’s plan calls for Huger’s division to move in from the northeast, and A.P. Hill and Longstreet from the west.  Holmes also prepares to strike from the southwest.  Lee’s design is to take control of the roads of retreat so as to isolate and destroy part of the retreating Union army: so far, possession of the Quaker Road, the Long Bridge Road, and the heights of Malvern Hill, which command the roads leading to Harrison’s Landing and the Navy, are in McClellan’s hands.  However, Huger advances with caution, and spends much of the day cutting a new road and, when finally within artillery range of the Union lines, decides to call off the attack.  Believing that Huger has engaged the bluecoats, Lee orders Longstreet to step off, and Longstreet’s artillery is soon pelting the Federal lines as his six brigades of infantry go forward against the divisions of McCall, Hooker, Sedgwick, and Kearney, with McCall bearing the brunt: two of his brigades, under Meade and Truman Seymour, are hit hardest.  The lack of a central command amongst the Union troops makes defense difficult: although Longstreet loses nearly a fourth of his division, he inflicts terrible losses on the Yankees as well.  In the lead are the brigades of Wilcox at the north, then Micah Jenkins and then James Kemper, whose Virginians are all new to battle.  Kemper pushes forward, captures some of the Federal guns, and pierces McCall’s line. 

Longstreet's Attack

 Jenkins aids him on his left, followed by Wilcox on Jenkins’ left.  The Union response, uncoordinated, is sluggish.  (Hand-to-hand fighting is vicious, and several Union commanders are wounded, including Meade and corps commander Sumner; McCall and Reynolds are captured.  On the Southern side, Pender, Featherston, and Anderson are wounded.)  Gen. Sumner sends Hooker in to strike the Confederate right flank, and Sedgwick’s brigades arrive in time to plug the holes.  Hill’s men are brought up to relieve Longstreet’s exhausted brigades, but his attacks are also ineffectual. 

Battle of Glendale, showing Longstreet's Attack, and Hill (in dark red) who later came to support Longstreet

Holmes attacks on the Union left, but is beaten back with losses.  But, following a Federal pattern of tactical battlefield victory followed by retreat, the Union forces withdraw, and are able to finish their retreat on the protected roads.  They begin forming a defensive line on the slopes of Malvern Hill during the night, in order to guard the approaches to the new Union base at Harrison’s Landing on the James River.  The Yankee retreat is good for the Confederates---unfortunately, it convinces Lee that the Yankees are demoralized, and he feels that a swift blow struck the next day could finish them. 

What began as a rear-guard action devolves into one of the bloodiest fights of the war, considering its brevity and number of casualties.  Although Lee fails to smash the Union Army, the Yankees fail to keep the fruits of victory.  Confederate Victory (marginal).

Losses:                 Killed           Wounded         Captured or Missing        Total

Union:                    297               1,696                 1,804                                   3,797

Confederate:        638               2,814                    221                                    3,673

McClellan is not present at the battle, nor in direct contact with his commanders (none of whom are ordered by him to take command in his absence), since he spends the day aboard the USS Galena dining with its captain and observing the Navy shelling of part of Holmes’ force.  He sends messages to Washington, asking for 50,000 reinforcements, with which he promises to re-coup his losses.  Many thinkers on both sides consider this battle to have been Lee’s best chance to destroy McClellan and to have won the war.

Map of Glendale and White Oak Swamp, showing the threat Jackson was to the Union rear, if he could have carried out his crossing of the White Oak Swamp river

---Battle of White Oak Swamp:  In what becomes a separate action, Jackson probes the crossings in White Oak Swamp, where Gen. Franklin of the Union army has his corps deployed.  After finding that he is unable to advance troops to re-build the bridge, Gen. Wade Hampton finds another crossing farther to the left, and Jackson instructs Hampton to have his men construct a bridge.  Hampton completes the project, and reports to Jackson, volunteering to lead the attack across the rickety bridge.  Jackson says nothing, but only walks away to a tree, lies down under it, and falls asleep.  His men fail to be any kind of factor in the attack at Glendale.  Meanwhile, Sedgwick brings his federal brigades to aid in the repulse of Jackson’s uncoordinated attack, and afterward swings them to the west to assist in the Union defense of Glendale. 

---Judith White McGuire, of Richmond, writes in her journal passionately of the dire possibilities at stake in the fighting roaring a few miles away at Glendale:

June 30.—McClellan certainly retreating. We begin to breathe more freely; but he fights as he goes. Oh, that he may be surrounded before he gets to his gun-boats! Rumours are flying about that he is surrounded; but we do not believe it—only hope that he may be before he reaches the river. The city is sad, because of the dead and dying, but our hearts are filled with gratitude and love. The end is not yet—oh that it were!

---The Richmond Daily Dispatch, on this date, publishes a grandiloquent, yet vague, assessment of the Savage’s Station battle yesterday:

Suffice it to say that from the opening of the grand ball on Thursday afternoon down to the hour which witnessed the enemy in full retreat, the efforts of our forces were attended with unbroken success, and at no time did the brave men upon whom hung the hopes and the confidence of the country, falter or waver in their determination to make the victory decisive. Battery after battery was stormed with the most daring disregard of human life, and the apparently impregnable positions of the enemy were carried at the point of the bayonet with the most impetuous ardor. Never did men fight more bravely, and never was valor more surely and signally rewarded.

Our loss is heavy, both in officers and men. The soil of Virginia, the grand old mother of States is enriched with the best blood of her suffering Southern sisters, and from every State of the Confederacy the martyrs of liberty have united in pouring out the crimson tide as a rich and imperishable libation upon the altar of the one great common cause. . . .

---The Wilmington Daily Journal, a North Carolina newspaper, reports hopefully albeit erroneously “that McClellan is reported mortally wounded.  His army is fighting for existence.  It is at bay and desperate.”  This typifies the optimistic tenor of much of the Southern journalistic response to the intense fighting around Richmond.

Federal troops on the firing line at Glendale, in a skethc by Alfred Waud