Battle of Seven Pines

Johnston withdrew his 60,000th army from the Virginian Peninsula, and McClellan pursued him and was already approaching the outskirts of Richmond . Johnston's defensive line began on the James River at Drury Bluff, its center and left flank was located beyond the Chikahomini River. The river was a convenient line of defense - in the spring it spilled and turned the plains east of Richmond into swamps. Johnston's army burned all the bridges across the river and took up positions north and east of the city. McClellan's army numbered 105,000; he located it in the northeast. He was waiting for the arrival of the 1st McDowell Corps, so he tried to control the northern direction.

The Potomac Army established bases at Eltams Landing, Cumberland Landing and White House Landing. White House, the plantation of Rooney Lee, the son of General Robert Lee , has become McClellan's main base. The railroad allowed him to move heavy siege artillery to the outskirts of Richmond. He moved slowly, without haste, sincerely believing that the enemy army outnumbered him. By the end of May, the northerners had built bridges on Chikahomini and crossed the river, having presented a third of the army to the south coast. On May 23, Kiz’s corps crossed the river, and on the 27th began to strengthen its position on the Williamsburg road near the Seven Pines.

The 105,000-strong federal army approached Richmond from the northeast, deploying on the banks of the Chiquahomini River. On the north bank stood three buildings, covering supply lines. These were the V Corps of General Porter , VI Corps of Franklin, and II Corps of Sumner. To the south of the river stood the 4th Corps of Brigadier General Erasmus Keyes and the 3rd Corps of Hentzelman. May 31, at the time of the start of the battle, Commander-in-Chief General McClellan suffered from a malaria attack and was bedridden ^[1] .

Johnston had 60,000 people, divided into two wings. The right wing under the command of General Longstreet consisted of divisions of Richard Anderson , Daniel Hill and Benjamin Huger . The left wing, under the command of General Gustavus Smith, consisted of divisions of General William White and General Ambrose Hill . In reserve (under the command of John Magruder) were the divisions of Lafayette McLouse and David Jones.

Retreating west along the peninsula, Johnston realized that he could not withstand the siege in Richmond, so he decided to attack the enemy. The original plan was to attack the right flank of the Potomac Army on the north side of Chickahomini, to prevent it from connecting with McDowell's corps, which was approaching from Frederiksberg. However, on May 27, Johnston received a message that McDowell’s corps was sent to the Shenandoah Valley and could not strengthen the Potomac Army. Then Johnston abandoned the original plan and decided to take advantage of the fact that the two federal corps were cut off by the river from their main forces.

Johnston decided to allocate three quarters of his army (22 out of 29 infantry brigades, approximately 51,000) against the III and IV federal corps (33,000). The attack plan was rather complicated. The divisions of E.P. Hill and Magruder were to divert the attention of the federal corps north of the river, while Longstreet, commanding the main forces, was to attack the corps of Keyes from three sides. Six Longstreet brigades and four D.Hill brigades were supposed to go along two roads to Seven Pines ( Seven Pines , named after seven large pines); Huger’s three brigades were supposed to hold the attack on the right, and the Whiting division followed Longstreet as a reserve. This plan had every chance of success, since the extreme western division of the 4th Corps, under the command of Silas Casey (6,000 men), was staffed by the least experienced fighters. If it was possible to defeat the III Corps, the IV Corps would be pressed to the river and defeated.

However, this complex plan did not work well from the very beginning. For some reason, Johnston gave all the instructions orally during a long meeting on May 30th. The rest of the generals received written orders - not quite intelligible. Johnston also did not manage to notify the divisional command that Longstreet was entrusted with the general command of all forces south of the river. This led to certain overlaps, as Huger and Smith were ranked above Longstreet. In turn, Longstreet did not fully understand the order, or preferred to change it without notifying Johnston. Instead of advancing along the indicated Nine Mile Road, his convoy moved behind Hill along the Williamsburg Road, which not only delayed the advance, but also narrowed the front, allowing only part of the forces to be used. In addition to all this, a severe storm at night on May 30 caused a rise in water in the river, demolished many federal bridges and turned roads into a swamp.

The battle from the very beginning went unsuccessfully for the Confederate army. Longstreet divisions moved along Charles City Road and turned onto the Williamsburg Road, instead of the agreed-upon Nine Mile Road. In the order to General Huger, the time of the performance was not indicated at all, Johnston demanded to speak as early as possible (“as early in the morning as possible” and at the end of the order again: “PS - It is necessary to move very early.” ^[2] ) However, Huger slept until the very moment he heard the movement of troops. Commander-in-Chief Johnston and his deputy, General Gustavus Smith , did not know anything about Longstreet's movements and the delay of Huger. At 13:00, 4 hours after the alleged start of the offensive, General Daniel Hill lost patience and ordered his brigades to attack the positions of General Casey's division.

Hill's division was advanced by two advanced brigades - Garland and Rhodes , each of 5 regiments. The team of Gabriel Raines was to bypass the left flank of the enemy. Anderson's brigade advanced on the right flank of the northerners.

Casey's division occupied fortifications with a redoubt in the center, 5 regiments of the brigade of Henry Negley (98th, 92nd, 100th New York, 11th Manx and 104th Pennsylvania) and Spratt's battery were advanced. The battery stood on the north side of the Williamsburg Road. A line of pickets was put up in front of the positions and one regiment was sent to support the pickets. This regiment in the first minutes of the battle lost a quarter of its composition and retreated in panic and disorder.

General Garland described the beginning of the offensive as follows:

“Now we have come to the edge of the forest, where the notch prevented us from advancing further. The brigade came under heavy fire ... Regiment commanders were ordered to turn left and bypass the enemy from the flank, but they could not organize this maneuver under fire. There was nothing left to do but move the shelves forward through the notch. ”

Casey's positions were staffed by inexperienced soldiers, however, they fought fiercely, and the battle took place with heavy losses on both sides. Southerners involved only four brigades instead of the 13 at their disposal, so their strike on a weak section of enemy positions was not powerful enough. Casey asked General Keyes for reinforcements, but the answer was delayed. Finally, the southerners managed to press out the advanced 5 regiments of the enemy, go to the earthen fortifications and take the central redoubt.

General Hill then recalled: “... I noticed anxiety in the enemy’s camp and on the redoubt, and signs that they were going to leave the redoubt.” Rhodes competently took advantage of their confusion, and moved his brigade forward in perfect order, and captured the redoubt and rifle cells.

Casey led the troops to the second line of defense at the Seven Pines junction. By this time, both commanders did not know anything about the situation on the battlefield. At 14:30, Heinzelman told McClellan, still in bed, that he had not yet received a word from General Keyes. General Johnston was 2.5 miles from the front, but because of the terrain he did not hear the cannonade and shooting, so until 16:00 he did not know about the start of the battle.

In the Potomac Army there was a special aeronautical corps commanded by Professor Tadeusz Low . Low organized two observation posts on the north bank of the river - at Gaines Farm and at Mechinsville. On May 29, he announced the concentration of enemy forces near New Bridge and near the Fair-Oax station. Due to heavy rains on May 30 and wind on May 31, the Washington and Intrepid balloons did not take action until noon. In the afternoon, Low noticed the movement of enemy troops in the battle formation and this information was delivered to McClellan's headquarters at 14:30. By the end of the day, Lowe would send telegraph messages from Intrepid.

Around 16:40, General Daniel Hill, receiving reinforcements from Longstreet , attacked near Seven Pines the second line of federal fortifications held by the remnants of Casey's division, Darius Couch 's division, and Philip Kearney's division. Hill carried out a detour, sending 4 regiments under the command of Mickey Jenkins to attack Keyes' right flank. This attack drove the northerners to the Williamsburg Road, a mile and a half beyond the Seven Pines. The battle in this area subsided at 19:30.

Just before the Hill attack, General Johnston found out that Longstreet divisions were involved in the battle. This was the first news Johnston had learned during the battle. He took three brigades from the Whiting division ( Wade Hampton , Hatton and Pettigrew), moved forward and joined the battle at Fair Oaks Station, north of the railway line. Soon large federal reinforcements approached. Brigadier General Edwin Sumner (commander of the 2nd Corps) heard the noise of battle and, on his own initiative, sent John Sedgwick's division there. The precarious Grape Bridge was nearly swept away by the flood, but the weight of the division along it helped him to withstand. When Sumner heard that the river could not be crossed, he replied: “Impossible? Sir, I tell you, I can do it! I have an order! ”When the last soldier went ashore, the bridge was washed away by the current. But Sedgwick's division managed to get in the way of the upcoming Whiting division. The battle was fierce - Whiting lost three of the four brigade commanders. Wade Hampton was wounded, Robert Hatton was killed, Johnston Pettigrew wounded and captured.

General Sumner wrote:

I ordered the regiments - 82nd New York , 34th New York, 15th Massachusetts, 20th Massachusetts and 7th Michigan - to move forward and attack with bayonets. There were two hedges between us and the enemy, but our people broke through them, the enemy trembled and ran, and this ended the fighting on Saturday.

- "From Manasas to Appomatox, Chapter 7"

On the federal side, Brigadier General Oliver Howard was injured in his right arm with a Mignier bullet . The arm was amputated, and Howard was out of action for several months (later he received the Medal of Honor for this).

Closer to sunset, an event later became famous: General Johnston was wounded by a bullet in his right shoulder, and immediately a shell fragment hit him in the chest. Having lost consciousness, he fell from his horse and was evacuated to Richmond. His right shoulder blade and two ribs were broken. Gustav Smith took command of the army. He was ill at that time and had no idea how to continue the battle. He made a bad impression on President Davis and his military adviser, General Lee. On June 1, towards the end of the battle, Davis appointed General Lee as commander in chief.

By the end of the day, the federal army retreated on the left flank, left the Seven Pines and took up positions along the railway line, with a front to the south. Here stood the Richardson division: the brigades of Howard , French, Mieger (Irish brigade) and Byrne .

On June 1, an army of southerners attacked enemy positions along the railway by forces of three brigades: Mahone , Armistead, and Pickett . The John Hood brigade stood at the Fair-Oaks Station, the Prior and Wilcox brigades — to the right of Pickett, with the front to the east. The attack was unsuccessful, the northerners pulled up reinforcements and took strong positions, so they could not be squeezed. Joseph Hooker ’s division approached the battlefield. They attacked parts of Huger and Longstreet and forced them out. The battle ended around 11:30, when the southerners retreated west of the Seven Pines. At this time, McClellan arrived on the battlefield, but the northerners did not launch a counterattack.

Both sides declared themselves winners and the losses were approximately equal. However, McClellan’s offensive on Richmond slowed down and his army returned to its position. Northerners lost 790 people killed, 3,594 wounded and 647 people were captured. Southerners lost 980 people killed, 4,749 wounded and 405 captured. Northerners remembered the battle as the “Battle of Fair Oaks Station,” because it was on this site that they fought most successfully. Southerners for the same reasons called the battle "the battle of Seven Pines." The historian Stefan Sears considers Seven Pines to be a more adequate name, since there were major battles and major losses were suffered ^[3] .

The battle of Seven Pines is considered the first battle in world history where machine guns were used. At the time the war began, the federal army had about 60 Eigar machine guns , and the Confederation purchased several Williams machine guns. They did not significantly affect the course of the battle.

The figures of casualties suffered during Fair Oaks - approximately 13 percent of the troops on each side killed, wounded or missing, are quite common for that war - indicate that nothing out of the ordinary happened. It is also doubtful that the generals of both armies paid particular attention to the effect that the new weapon produced, since it was unlikely that primitive mechanical guns could give more than a few bursts before the supply of cartridges was disrupted or, even worse, before the misfires began, after which was extremely difficult to restore the fighting efficiency of jammed guns ^[4] .

In 1911, Champion Film Company made the black and white film Longstreet at Seven Pines.

• Robert P. Broadwater, The Battle of Fair Oaks: Turning Point of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, McFarland, 2011 ISBN 0786485434

• List of regiments of the North and South in the battle
• Brigadier General Silas Casey at the Battle of Seven Pines
• Animated Campaign Map
• Battlefield Map May 31
• June 1 Battlefield Map