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Once again in this long campaign on the Peninsula, "Prince John"
Magruder found himself in the limelight. Three months had passed since
the Virginian had duped the Federals with theatrics at Yorktown. Now he
was at the heart of Lee's plan to crush McClellan's army. Unfortunately,
he was barely up to the task. Magruder had been ill and was taking
medication laced with opium. He could not relax enough to sleep and
seemed to some around him to be nearing the end of his endurance.
Nevertheless the decisive hour was at hand, and Lee expected Magruder to
do his duty. The general's orders were plain: press vigorously toward
Savage's Station.
Magruder moved forward with 13,000 men on Sunday morning, June 29 and
skirmished with Federals along the railroad. The Northerners, under
General Sumner, made a stand near a peach orchard at Allen's Farm on the
railroad but withdrew after delaying Magruder a couple of hours. The
Confederates pushed on, but as they neared Savage's, Magruder began to
grow apprehensive. Federal activity in his front convinced him he was
about to be attacked, and he asked Lee for reinforcements. Lee likely
discounted Magruder's fears but supported him with two extra brigades
anyway, stipulating that the brigades must be returned if not used
promptly. The Federal attack never came, and the two brigades trudged
wearily back to where they belonged.
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MCCLELLAN BURNED BRIDGES, LIKE THIS ONE OVER THE CHICKAHOMINY RIVER, TO
STALL THE CONFEDERATE PURSUIT. (USAMHI)
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Lee had hoped to squeeze the Federal position at Savage's with
pressure from Magruder on the west and Jackson on the north, but the
latter was again mysteriously slow in fulfilling his assignment. His
men worked to rebuild bridges over the Chickahominy, but the task took
much longer than expected, and Jackson seems not to have pressed his men
to get the job done with all haste. In the afternoon, Jackson received
a copy of a note from headquarters that he believed ordered him to hold
his position at the bridges. When an officer from Magruder's command
asked Jackson why he was not crossing the Chickahominy to attack
Savage's Station, Jackson replied that he had "other important duties to
perform." This puzzled both Magruder and Lee. The commanding general
said Jackson had made a mistake and should be advancing vigorously. But
the misunderstanding had gone too far to be reclaimed. Magruder was on
his own and advanced cautiously.
After Sumner had withdrawn his Second Corps troops from Allen's Farm,
he joined most of the Sixth Corps and Third Corps around Savage's.
McClellan had moved on toward the James with the rest of the army
without appointing anyone to command the rear guard, nor had he issued
any orders about deployment at Savage's. Sumner, the senior general
present, did not quickly grasp the developing tactical situation and
made no cohesive defensive deployment, but he would have little trouble
fending off Magruder's tentative thrusts at Savage's Station. The
Confederate sent only a few of his brigades forward into the woods and
fields west of the station, and Sumner would send only a few in
response. The Confederates, especially the brigades of Brigadier General
Joseph B. Kershaw and Brigadier General Paul J. Semmes, pressed on
gallantly, inflicting severe punishment and threatening to breach the
Federal line. Brigadier General William Burns's Philadelphians surged
forward to stem the tide, and reinforcements from the large Federal
reserve stifled all further Southern advances. When Brigadier General
William T. H. Brooks's Vermont brigade stormed into the woods toward
dusk, it ran smack into Semmes's men and Colonel William Barksdale's
Mississippians. For a short time, the fight in the darkening woods
matched anything Shiloh or Seven Pines or Gaines's Mill could boast in
the way of ferocity. "In less time than it takes to tell it," recalled
one of Brooks's men, "the ground was strewn with fallen Vermonters." The
5th Vermont lost 206 men, more than half its strength, in 20 minutes.
Among the fallen were five Cummings brothers, one of their cousins and
their brother-in-law. Six of the seven men were killed; only the eldest
brother, Henry Cummings, survived.
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SAVAGE'S STATION BECAME A SMOLDERING RUIN. "THE SCENE WAS ALTOGETHER
UNEARTHLY AND DEMONIAC," WROTE AN OBSERVER. "THE WORKMEN SEEMED TO HAVE
A SAVAGE AND FIENDISH JOY IN CONSIGNING TO THE FLAMES WHAT A FEW DAYS
AFTERWARDS THEY WOULD HAVE GIVEN THOUSANDS TO ENJOY." (BL)
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When the fighting stopped west of Savage's, almost 450 of Magruder's
men had become casualties. The South Carolinians of Kershaw's Brigade
got the worst of the fight, losing 290 men, and in a vain cause, for
Magruder had not accomplished his mission or attained any significant
strategic advantages. Later that night, Lee uncharacteristically
expressed his dissatisfaction with Magruder's lack of progress. The
commanding general saw that his opportunities to seriously harm the
Federals were slipping away and told Magruder "we must waste no more
time or he will escape us entirely."
That night held no rest for the Army of the Potomac. The men stumbled
onward though the black forests and endured the lashings of a violent
thunderstorm before dawn on June 30 found most of them south of White
Oak Swamp. McClellan met with some of his commanders at the nearby
Glendale intersection early in the day and issued broad orders to defend
the crossroads until all the trains, artillery, and the remainder of the
army had passed. The commanding general scattered seven divisions
around in a four-mile arc to cover Glendale, then left the field, riding
southward to the James and then taking a cutter out to the gunboat
Galena, where he would spend the rest of the day and part of the
next. Many in the army later felt McClellan had abandoned them. The
general claimed he intended to use the gunboat to scout the river and
find a safe haven for his army, but he had already assigned that task to
army engineers, and, in any event, it would seem that the commanding
general's presence would be of greater value with his men while they
awaited the approach of the enemy. McClellan had issued no specific
orders to any of his generals at Glendale and had assigned none of them
to overall command in his absence. "Bull" Sumner was again in command
by default, and the fight that day would be a clumsy, uncoordinated
effort to stave off repeated Confederate thrusts.
Stonewall Jackson at last crossed the Chickahominy early on the
morning of June 30 and moved through Savage's Station, where Lee ordered
him to continue pursuing the Federals by way of the bridge over White
Oak Swamp. The Valley general set off at once and with his more than
20,000 men made it to the swamp a little before noon, finding the bridge
destroyed and the Federals in strength on the south bank. Jackson
immediately deployed his artillery under cover of woods then opened a
terrific bombardment, the size and suddenness of which created havoc
for the Federals.
(click on image for a PDF version)
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TROOP MOVEMENTS JUNE 28-30
Following the Confederate victory
at Gaines's Mill, McClellan ordered his entire army away from the
Chickahominy and toward the James. Lee quickly recognized the opportunity for
cutting off McClellan's retreat and defeating the widely scattered Union
forces. His plans called for a concentration of troops at the cross
roads near Glendale. On June 29 Confederate columns, following
different routes, marched toward the crossroads. The Union army found
itself in a precarious position, with soldiers scattered over ten miles
from the bridge at White Oak Swamp to the River Road leading to
Harrison's Landing.
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"It was as if a nest of earthquakes had suddenly exploded under our
feet," wrote a Vermont soldier. Terrified men, horses, and mules dashed
about in confusion. The Federals arranged a few batteries to respond and
the affair settled into an artillery duel in which neither side had a
clear view of the other because of smoke and trees. Jackson permitted
the exchange to continue all day as his cavalry and ambitious
subordinate officers probed for ways to get across the swamp. Jackson
appears to have made no reasonable attempt to move his men across either
by force or by stealth, and, in fact, even found occasion for an
afternoon nap. Whatever the reason for Jackson's mysterious behavior at
White Oak Swamp, the effect was that the Federals on the south bank
conducted yet another successful rear-guard action. For the third time
in the five days of Lee's offensive, Jackson's troops would not get into
the day's fight.
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STONEWALL JACKSON'S CONFEDERATES RAN INTO STIFF RESISTANCE AT WHITE OAK
SWAMP BRIDGE. POWERFUL UNION ARTILLERY BOUGHT EXTRA TIME FOR MCCLELLAN'S
RETREAT AND THE DEFENDERS AT GLENDALE. (BL)
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GLENDALE OR FRAYSER'S FARM?
Having multiple names for the same battle remains one of the war's
more interesting curiosities. Explanations are just as varied. One old
story goes, "Well, northerners and southerners couldn't agree on much,
so why should they agree on what to name the battles." Whatever the
reason, this habit, popularized at Bull Run or Manassas, continued
indiscriminately throughout the war.
The 1862 actions before Richmond certainly lived up to the tradition
with the likes of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), Oak Grove (King's School
House), Beaver Dam Creek (Mechanicsville), and Gaines's Mill (Cold
Harbor) making their way into the correspondence. But no battle of the
war goes by more names than the one fought on June 30, 1862. Union
reports generally referred to the action as Glendale while Confederate
writers preferred Frayser's (commonly misspelled Frazier's), Farm. Those
two are just the beginning.
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THIS PERIOD SKETCH FEATURED THE BATTLEFIELD LANDMARKS WILLIS METHODIST
CHURCH, WILLIS CHURCH ROAD, AND NELSON'S FARMHOUSE. (BL)
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Many think Glendale referred to a small community or the important
crossroads. It was neither. Instead Glendale was the wartime home and
property of the R. H. Nelson family. The Nelson farm had belonged to the
Frayser family, but that was before the war began. A popular theory has
it that when the soldiers asked the locals to name the fields they had
fought on, many still called it Frayser's even though the family had
long since moved away. Regardless, both Frayser and Nelson appear
frequently in soldiers' after-action accounts.
The crossroads where the Long Bridge, Charles City, and Willis Church
(or Quaker) Roads came together had several names. On one corner stood
Riddell's Shop, a blacksmith business, that was used repeatedly as a
battlefield reference. Just as often, though, soldiers used the major
roads to name the intersection. Hence many reported on June 30 as the
Battle of Charles City Crossroads.
Willis Methodist Church, a battlefield landmark, also lent its name
to the day's events. Then, too, many confused the nearby New Market Road
with the Long Bridge Road, adding two more battle names to the list. In
a perverse twist, the Whitlock farm, site of repeated attacks on June
30, rarely turns up in accounts.
The soldiers who fought over this nondescript landscape knew it by
many names. Whatever the name, this now quiet country crossroads will be
forever remembered for the deeds of others long ago.
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About two miles to the west of the stalemate at White Oak Swamp,
Lee's other two attacking columns—one under Benjamin Huger and a
larger force composed of A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's divisions, tried
to move directly on Glendale. Huger, slowed by trees felled across the
road and blocked by Federal artillery and a division of infantry under
Brigadier General Henry Slocum, could make little headway on the Charles
City Road. To the south, a small column on the River Road under General
Theophilus H. Holmes recoiled before massed Federal artillery and fire
from gunboats. As the afternoon wore on, Lee realized that his plan to
interdict the Federal retreat had gone awry and that the only hope of
damaging the Federals lay with Longstreet's column on the Long Bridge
Road. About 4 P.M., Lee ordered Longstreet into the fight.
Longstreet attacked with his own and A. P. Hill's men on both sides
of the Long Bridge Road. In position to meet the assault were Hill's
adversaries from Beaver Dam Creek and Gaines's Mill, the Pennsylvanians
of George McCall's division. Hill's and McCall's men had already done
more fighting that week than any other troops, and they deserved the day
off, but fate threw them together on the Long Bridge Road in what would
be perhaps the most savage fighting of that week of battles.
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DETERMINED SOLDIERS, LIKE THESE FROM WILLIAM F. "BALDY" SMITH'S
DIVISION, HELPED FEND OFF LEE'S ARMY ON JUNE 30. (BL)
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Twenty-four field guns from six batteries—New Yorkers,
Pennsylvanians, and U.S. Regulars—held the crest of a shallow rise
above a ravine southwest of Glendale. The artillery presented a formidable
front, made even more fearsome by McCall's 6,000 men and Phil
Kearny's 7,500 infantrymen. Nearby in reserve stood two more divisions
of Federal infantry under Sam Heintzelman and Sumner, plus several
batteries. But Longstreet's men seemed possessed by a powerful
determination and lunged forward with almost irresistible recklessness.
"But a single idea seemed to control the minds of the men," wrote
Brigadier General James L. Kemper of his brigade's advance, "which was
to reach the enemy's line by the directest route and in the shortest
time; and no earthly power could have availed to arrest or restrain the
impetuousity with which they rushed toward the foe."
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MEN OF PHILIP KEARNEY'S DIVISION
FIGHTING IN THE WOODS ABOVE GLENDALE. (LC)
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Kemper's Virginians shattered McCall's left flank, then had to
withdraw because supports did not come forward quickly enough. But
McCall's line had been broken and would never quite be restored in the
seesaw fighting through the rest of the afternoon. Longstreet's six
brigades and Hill's six repeatedly charged against McCall and Kearny,
occasionally breached McCall's line, then reeled back under the force of
counterattacks. The climax of the fighting came near sunset when
Alabamians under Brigadier General Cadmus M. Wilcox captured the six-gun
battery of Lieutenant Alanson Randol on the Long Bridge Road. The
Pennsylvanians, joined by an enraged Randol and his gunners,
counterattacked and retook the guns in more hand-to-hand fighting. But
Virginians under Brigadier General Charles W. Field took the battery
back and held it. General McCall, wounded but still riding through the
darkening forest to shore up his lines, wandered into the ranks of the
47th Virginia and went to Richmond the next day as a prisoner. McCall's
survivors and their supports helped Kearny's stalwart veterans hold the
line until the Confederates ceased their attacks well after 9 P.M.
(click on image for a PDF version)
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BATTLE OF GLENDALE, JUNE 30
Lee's plan to concentrate the
army and control the vital crossroads near Glendale never materialized.
Stonewall Jackson's advance stalled at White Oak Swamp against two Union
divisions. They spent the day exchanging artillery fire. Artillery and
felled trees blocked Benjamin Huger's march along the Charles City
Road. Major General Holmes provided scant support along the River Road.
Only the divisions of James Longstreet and A. P. Hill reached the
battlefield. Once there they met stubborn resistance from five Union
divisions. In a bitter, sometimes hand-to-hand, struggle men fought one
another with clubbed muskets and bayonets. Darkness brought the action
to a close. The road to the James remained open.
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Soldiers remembered the fighting at Glendale for its savagery. "No
more desperate encounter took place in the war," wrote Confederate E. P.
Alexander, "and nowhere else, to my knowledge, so much actual personal
fighting with bayonet and butt of gun." The Federals had spent some
2,800 men in defending the army's retreat route. The Confederates had
expended 3,600 in their failed attempt (which they referred to as the
Battle of Frayser's Farm) to cut the Army of the Potomac to pieces.
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THE FEDERAL PERSPECTIVE AT GLENDALE
Some of the most ferocious fighting of the campaign occurred on June
30 at Glendale (Frayser's Farm). The 7th Pennsylvania Reserves were in
the thickest of the action. This excerpt is from a postwar account by a
member of that regiment, describing an early phase of the
battle.
Suddenly a Confederate regiment . . . charged in mass from the black
jacks at [the] lower end of the pines, crossing the "breast works" which
we had so hastily constructed and from which we had been ordered
rearward. They move on a run across Randall's muzzles as though to pass
round to his left. But Captain Cooper's battery is on the left of the
regulars, Randall's men cease their shell fire at first sight of the
charging column, quickly depress their muzzles, load grape and canister,
and "let go."
The merciless guns roar in quick succession, and the carnage . . .
has begun. Oh that terrible afternoon of June 30, 1862. 'Tis always
foremost in my memory of the seven days' battle. The enemy is within
easy musket range, and fires a few shots directed on the battery, which
seemed like kicking against a whirlwind, or trying to stop a mountain
torrent. Many of them are seen to fall in the clouds of dust being
raised by the grape shot striking the parched ground . . . . As we
looked upon them and waited for some word of command it seemed they did
not know what to do about it, that they were in the wrong place and
disliked the idea of "getting out." Our gunners slammed into them with
rapidity. The ground was somewhat depressed on the battery front, and
in order that the canister might produce more havoc the muzzles were
held well down thus lifting the gun wheels from the ground at every
discharge.
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EARLY FIGHTING AT GLENDALE CENTERED ON THE CHARLES CITY ROAD. THE STRAW
HATS WORN BY THE 16TH NEW YORK INFANTRY CAUGHT ONE ARTIST'S EYE.
(BL)
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Col. Harvey commanded "Charge, seventh regiment." We moved away in
almost solid mass . . . . As we advance, sounding the charge yell, we
see the enemy surging slightly, but heavily, as a mighty wave, the
deadly fire of the artillery still pouring into them. They seem, so to
speak, to find their level, somewhat after the manner of a large body
of water suddenly shot into a reservoir or other inclosure, then suddenly
move as water that has found a large outlet, back by the way they had
advanced . . . .
The artillery slewed their guns to the right to follow the enemy as
we made way for them, until they now fired into the pines . . . . the
canister, at every discharge, barked the trees, smacking off patches as
large as one's hand from two to six feet from the ground, thus suddenly
exposing the white wood, reminding one of the illuminings of numerous
very large fire bugs on the tree trunks . . . . I saw about 100 feet in
rear, a young pine some thirty feet tall, knocked off by our canister
about five feet from the ground, the trunk being carried suddenly
forward and upward. The tree fell on its top; the stem pointing upward
for an instant then falling over.
Holmes Alexander
Hummelstown (Pa.)
Sun, 1894
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THE CAPTURE OF RANDOL'S UNION BATTERY EPITOMIZED THE CLOSE-QUARTERS
FIGHTING AT GLENDALE. (BL)
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