May 5, 1862 - Williamsburg plus Battle of Eltham's Landing

May 5, 1862

Williamsburg

York County and Williamsburg, VA

General George B. McClellan’s army:  III Corps under the command of General Samuel P. Heintzelman; General Joseph Hooker (supported by General Darius N. Couch's IV Corps brigade); Phil Kearny's division;  General Winfield S. Hancock's brigade; Gen. Edwin V. Sumner

vs.

the rear guard of General Joseph E. Johnston’s retreating army: General Jubal Early; Gen. Longstreet's Division: Virginia regiments under Gens. A.P. Hill and George Pickett

and 

separately, there is a cavalry clash here:

Gen. George Stoneman’s cavalry

vs.

Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry > Lt. Col. W.C. Wickham’s 4th Virginia Cavalry

* Fairly big yet inconclusive battle - the Confederates stall to retreat more. Based on how quickly and how much men and equipment the Confederates abandoned as they left, it seems like a Union victory, but the Union lost a lot more men. McClellan follows them; we get the 7 Days Battles around Richmond next. 

* Magruder replaces Ewell with McLaws here due to inaction, which is only interesting because both Confederate generals stick around for a lot longer in the war. They were needed.

* You may see references to the "Wren Building." Please ignore: I missed it. Or rather, that's a few months later. 

* Our friends at the ABT have a diary of a soldier reporting on this very battle! He even mentions the balloons back in April. And he reports about Williamsburg, "the women are all secesh to the backbone."

* More interesting stuff stolen from the AFT:

- During the Battle, Hancock was tasked with moving around the Federal right flank and probing Longstreet's extreme left...Hancock captured Redoubt 11. Once the Confederates realized that Hancock's men were threatening their left, Jubal Early was sent to attack the Federals. Hancock's men summarily repulsed the Confederate attack. After the battle, McClellan wrote back to Washington D.C., citing, "Hancock was superb today."  “Hancock the Superb” stuck.

- With a Confederate counterattack bearing hard upon the Federal lines, Heintzelman ordered several regimental bands to play "Yankee Doodle" to rally some of the broken regiments. The music lifted the men's morale and came just in time for Kearny's reinforcements to arrive on the field. One of Heintzelman's staff offers later stated that the music "was worth a thousand men and saved the battle."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=171657

Williamsburg in the Civil War
Gateway to Richmond
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

Williamsburg, once the capital of Virginia, declined after the American Revolution. By 1861, although many colonial structures still lined the streets, the Governor’s Palace and former capitol building lay in ruins. The College of William and Mary had lost prestige. Roads were unpaved and rutted, while the population and commerce had dwindled.

When the Civil War erupted, however, Williamsburg became strategically significant. Situated 12 miles west of Yorktown on a peninsula formed by the York and James rivers, Williamsburg is located on a four-mile-wide plain with ravines, marshes, millponds, and streams – to the east and west. The topography narrowed the land approach to Williamsburg from Hampton and Yorktown. Two highways, the Yorktown-Hampton and Great Warwick (Hampton) Roads, converged a few miles east of Williamsburg and then passed through the town toward Richmond, the Confederate capital, 50 miles northwest. Fort Monroe, the only masonry fort in Virginia in Union hands throughout the war, stands 24 miles southeast on Old Point Comfort near Hampton.

Because the Confederates were determined to block any Federal advance from Fort Monroe, Williamsburg became a key to their defensive system. The array of fortifications known as the Williamsburg Line was the scene of the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg. The town escaped damage then, but later, on September 5, Pennsylvania cavalrymen burned the Wren Building after a Confederate raid. The Federals occupied Williamsburg for the rest of the war.

Although Williamsburg is famous for its colonial heritage, parts of the 1862 battlefield remain intact, such as the two redoubts found here in Redoubt Park. The city of Williamsburg, Riverside Health Systems, and the Virginia War Museum Foundation cooperated to preserve them.

Welcome to Redoubt Park - where some of the battle's entrenchments are well preserved. This is NOT Fort McGruder though; we are going there next.  

Oh yea, peep that redoubt! 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=171658

Redoubt 1
Engineers Debate the Williamsburg Line
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

Because Lt. Col. Benjamin S. Ewell had made little progress on the Williamsburg defenses by late June 1861, Gen. John B. Magruder, commanding the Army of the Peninsula, replaced him with Gen. Lafayette McLaws. Capt. Alfred L. Rives, acting chief of the Engineer Bureau in Richmond and an 1848 graduate of Virginia Military Institute, disliked Ewell’s concept of a defense based on interlocking redoubts (detached fortifications linked by rifle pits) but gave in. He later wrote that when “one redoubt is carried … the troops cease to have confidence in the whole line and the defense … is most defective.” He also found Ewell’s proposed line, which ran north from College Creek through Williamsburg, would have required leveling part of the town to clear fields of fire. Rives suggested a line east of town to take advantage of terrain features. Ewell thought it too long, requiring too many men to defend it. Magruder, a West Point trained engineer like Ewell and McLaws, agreed with Rives’s choice of location and ordered McLaws to begin work on July 9, 1861.

Soldiers and impressed slaves constructed the line, beginning here with Redoubt 1 and continuing four miles across the Peninsula to Redoubt 14 at Cub Run Creek. The redoubts stood 600 to 800 yards apart, with the largest, Fort Magruder (Redoubt 6), in the center guarding the Williamsburg Road. Cleared fields of fire, rifle pits and abatis (felled trees with sharpened branches pointing toward the enemy) fronted each redoubt. Redoubt 1, one of the largest fortifications, mounted three artillery pieces behind a mile-long ravine overlooking Tutter’s Mill Pond, a tributary of College Creek, and Quarterpath Road. The line was unfinished when the Federals began marching up the Peninsula on April 4, 1862.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=184202

Quarterpath Road
Historic Avenue
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

On the other side of the parapet is Quarterpath Road, a historic roadbed that for centuries linked Williamsburg to Allen’s Wharf on the James River. It runs behind the Confederate fortifications here, gaining additional importance during the Battle of Williamsburg.

Confederate Gen. John B. Magruder intended to use the Williamsburg Line if forced to abandon the Warwick-Yorktown Line. When Gen. Joseph E. Johnston assumed command of the Confederate forces blocking Union Gen. George B. McClellan’s advance from Fort Monroe toward Richmond, however, Johnston ignored the line and ordered a retreat up the Peninsula to the Confederate capital. On the evening of May 3, 1862, the Confederates withdrew from the Warwick-Yorktown defenses in heavy rain and on muddy roads. When McClellan realized that the fortifications had been abandoned, he sent Gen. Edwin V. Sumner in pursuit. The Confederate rear guard, Gen. James Longstreet’s division, had to slow the Federals and allow the Confederate artillery and wagon trains to advance toward Richmond.

Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry watched for pursuing Federal troops. On May 4, cavalry engagements occurred between Williamsburg and Yorktown. A Confederate later recalled, “The roads were long strings of guns, wagons, and ambulances, mixed in with infantry, artillery and cavalry, splashing and bogging through the darkness in a river of mud, with frequent long halts when some stalled vehicles blocked the road.”

Stuart concentrated his strength on the Confederate left under Lt. Col. W.C. Wickham’s 4th Virginia Cavalry, which clashed with Union Gen. George Stoneman’s cavalry, including four batteries of horse artillery, along the Yorktown Road. Philip St. George Cooke, Stuart’s father-in-law, commanded a Federal battery. When Stoneman detached Gen. William H. Emory to cut off a portion of the Confederate cavalry, Stuart and his horsemen became separated from the Southern forces. Stuart rode along the beach on the James River and then galloped up Quarterpath Road to rejoin the Confederate army.

*

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=164872

Battle of Williamsburg
The Bloody Ravine
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

 A critical part of the Battle of Williamsburg took place here on May 5, 1862. Union troops occupied the ridge to your right across present-day U.S. Route 60. The Confederate line of redoubts stood to your left on the ridge to the west. Felled timber on the ridge created clear fields of fire for the Confederates, and the intertwined branches (called abatis) obstructed the Federal attack. The railroad did not then exist, and this area was heavily wooded.

The battle began when Union Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac encountered the rear guard of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army retreating up the Peninsula toward Richmond. The Confederates intended to fight a delaying action, but it soon escalated into a major engagement. By 8 A.M., Union Gen. Joseph Hooker’s attack on Fort Magruder had spread to this position, and intense fighting against Confederate Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox’s brigade occurred in this valley, which was later called the “bloody ravine.”

By midday, Confederate field commander Gen. James Longstreet had committed the reserves. Virginia regiments under Gens. A.P. Hill and George Pickett advanced from Redoubts 2, 3, and 4, near the modern hotels directly in front of you and forced the Federals back to where you are standing. At 3 P.M., Union Gen. Philip Kearny arrived with reinforcements and the battle ended with both sides in approximately their original positions. The Confederates abandoned their redoubts that night and continued their withdrawal toward Richmond. McClellan wired Washington, “The victory is complete,” but Johnston later retorted, “Had the enemy beaten us on the fifth … our army would have lost most of its baggage and artillery.”

*

Confusing, but this still is NOT Fort Magruder. This is, rather, a creepy abandoned hotel/convention center where stuff happened in 1862. Three markers at this location: W-37, W-42, and W-43.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=130380

Quarterpath Road

James Bray owned land nearby in Middle Plantation by the 1650s, and Quarterpath Road probably began as a horse path to one of Bray’s quarters or farm units. Over the years, the road was improved; it extended to Col. Lewis Burwell’s landing on the James River by the early eighteenth century. As Williamsburg grew, Quarterpath Road became one of the principal routes by which travelers and trade goods were brought into the colonial capital.

 

Erected 1998 by Department of Historic Resources. 

(Marker Number W-42.)

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=10118

Peninsula Campaign

During the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, both Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had their armies west toward Richmond on this road. Johnston evacuated Yorktown on 3-4 May and withdrew up the Peninsula, with McClellan in pursuit. On 5 May, two Federal divisions clashed with the Confederate rear guard east of Williamsburg in a bloody but indecisive battle. Johnston’s army continued its march west and on 6-7 May eluded McClellan’s forces at Etham’s Landing on the York River opposite West Point. By mid-month the Confederates were secure behind the Richmond defenses.

 

Erected 1998 by Department of Historic Resources. 

(Marker Number W-37.)

 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=166339

The Battle of Williamsburg

The Battle of Williamsburg, fought on 5 May 1862, was the first major engagement of the Peninsula Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, slowly advancing from Hampton Roads toward Richmond, encountered the rear guard of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's westward-moving army near here. Confederates under Maj. Gen. James Longstreet delayed the Union advance in a fierce, daylong battle in a driving rain. Nearly 41,000 Federals and 32,000 Confederates were engaged, with about 4,000 casualties. The result was a draw, although both sides claimed victory. The next day, the Confederates continued marching toward Richmond and Union troops occupied Williamsburg.

 

Erected 2015 by Department of Historic Resources. 

(Marker Number W-43.)

*

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=265476

The Jersey Boys
"Not soldiers but bulldogs"
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

In the ravine before you, three New Jersey regiments experienced their bloodiest day of the Civil War, losing more men in this battle than any other.

On the mid-morning of May 5, 1862, the soldiers of the four regiments in the New Jersey brigade turned off the old Hampton Road in a driving rain and pushed through where you stand toward the ravine (where the landscape drops down). They were rushing to reinforce other Union regiments that were out of ammunition and falling back.

Gen. Francis Patterson ordered three of his four regiments forward, leaving the 5th New Jersey just behind you to support artillery pieces. As shot and shell flew overhead, the other three regiments plunged into the tangled undergrowth, slipping and sliding into a hail of Confederate musketry.

The ravine echoed with the sounds of gory hand-to-hand fighting, with troops mistaking friend for foe. The men from the 6th, 7th, and 8th regiments were outnumbered. Gen. Patterson recalled "a heavy fire in front ... was spreading around our left flank." Exhausted, out of ammunition, and facing a dozen Confederate regiments, the Jerseyans were forced back in this direction.

The Union artillerymen positioned behind you held their fire until the oncoming Confederates got closer. That, and the timely arrival of fresh Union soldiers commanded by Gen. Philip Kearny pushed the Confederates back.

That night, the Confederate army quietly abandoned Williamsburg, retreating towards Richmond.

(caption) Company H, 7th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry. Of the men pictured, two were killed or wounded here during the battle and only two would survive the war unscathed. Courtesy Library of Congress

Started at Redoubt Park. Just came from the Country Inn. And the next stop is Fort Magruder

*

Finally, the inevitably anticlimactic visit to the mostly flat piece of land near where the fort once stood - and it is mostly gated. Yea, you better lock up that memorial to un-American losers!

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=10371

Fort Magruder
An Ugly Place to Have to Attack
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

Here are the remains of Fort Magruder, an earthen redoubt built in 1861 at the center of the Confederate defensive line. The “Williamsburg Line” stretched between the James and York rivers and consisted of fourteen forts, commonly called redoubts. This was the third Confederate defensive line encountered by Federal troops under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan during the Peninsula Campaign in the spring of 1862. Fort Magruder was the heart of the Confederate position during the Battle of Williamsburg.

Fort Magruder formed an elongated pentagon 600 yards in circumference. Its walls rose 15 feet from a flooded moat and mounted eight guns. The fort guarded the intersection of the Yorktown – Hampton and Warwick roads a quarter-mile in front of you which provided the primary land access to Williamsburg.

At dawn on May 5, 1862, Brig. Gen. Richard H. Anderson’s South Carolina “Palmetto Sharpshooters” occupied the fort. Union Brig. Gen. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker’s troops from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New York, deployed to either side of the Warwick Road and advanced toward the Confederate redoubts amid concentrated artillery and infantry fire. An abatis of felled trees spread directly in front of the fort and the flanking redoubts. The abatis, along with the quagmire created by weeks of rain, made the area in front of the fort a muddy, tangled mess.

Union artillery commander, Maj. Gen. Charles S. Wainwright, called it “a very ugly place to have to attack.” One of Hooker’s troops said, “Their heavy shot came crashing among the tangled abatis of fallen timber, and plowed up the dirt in our front, rebounding and tearing through the woods in our rear … the continuous snap, snap, crack, crack was murderous.”

The battle ebbed and flowed all day, with both sides claiming victory. Nearly 20,000 troops were engaged. Union casualties numbered 2,283, while the Confederate losses were 1,560. The Southern troops abandoned Fort Magruder and the other redoubts of the Williamsburg Line during the night of the battle as the Confederate army withdrew toward Richmond. The desperate fighting and heroism displayed by both sides near this spot foretold the brutality and the battles to follow during the Peninsula Campaign.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=185422

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=10572

Fort Magruder

This large redoubt was the center of a defensive line crossing the Peninsula. These earthworks, constructed by the command of General John B. Magruder, were a part of the system of fortifications designed to protect Richmond.

Here on May 5, 1862. The Battle of Williamsburg delayed the advance of the Federal Army and made possible the continued defense of Richmond.

This site preserved by

The United Daughters of the Confederacy

This marker erected by

the citizens of Williamsburg on the

occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary

of

The Battle of Williamsburg

May 5, 1962

 

Erected 1962 by Citizens of Williamsburg.

&

Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument
1861 - 1865

1861-1865

To the

Confederate Soldiers and

Sailors of Williamsburg

and James City County

Erected by the United Daughters

of the Confederacy and the

Citizens of Williamsburg and

James City County.

“Lord of hosts, be with us yet,

lest we forget - lest we forget!”

 

Erected 1908 by The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Citizens of Williamsburg and James City County.

*    *    *

And basically in the same place (or just North and West of Williamsburg), at the same time....

May 7, 1862

Battle of Eltham’s Landing

Virginia, in New Kent County

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=183355

Battle of Eltham's Landing
Close Call for John Bell Hood
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

In April 1862, Union forces under Gen. George B. McClellan began a major campaign to capture Richmond, marching west from Fort Monroe up the Peninsula between the York and James rivers toward the Confederate capital. A Confederate army half their size opposed them. Slowly but inevitably, the Federal juggernaut overcame three Southern defensive lines and was soon camped in Richmond's eastern suburbs. New commander Robert E. Lee, however, led a Confederate offensive that drove the Union army away during the Seven Days' Battles at the end of June.

By May 4, 1862, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army was retreating west toward Richmond from Yorktown as Union Gen. George B. McClellan's army followed. McClellan, to accelerate the Federal advance on the Confederate capital and to interrupt Johnston, shipped half his force up the York River to West Point, the terminus of the Richmond and York Railroad at the junction of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey Rivers. A mile to the northeast at Brick House Point on the York River, Gen. William B. Franklin's division began disembarking on May 6, as Confederate cavalry scouts watched from the hills in front of you.

The next morning, Confederate Gen. Gustavus W. Smith sent Gen. W.H.C. Whiting's division forward, with Gen. John Bell Hood's Texas brigade in the lead and Col. Wade Hampton's Legion on Hood's right, to block Franklin's division as it moved south toward Barhamsville. As Hood rode north at the head of his column, he crested a steep hill to the west of here and suddenly encountered a detachment of skirmishers from Co. F, 16th New York Infantry, approaching from the other side. Federals opened fire, and Cpl. George Love drew a bead on Hood. Texan John Deal, however, fired first, sending a bullet whizzing past Hood, killing Love instantly and probably saving Hood's life. The New Yorkers quickly retreated to the main Union Line.

Whiting disengaged about 2 P.M. and rejoined Johnston to continue the retreat to Richmond. Smith later gave Hood's brigade "the largest share of the honors of the day at Eltham."

New Kent County is working with its citizens to preserve and to interpret other parts of the Eltham's Landing Battlefield. Please visit www.co.new-kent.va.us for updated information.

And let's finish up with a visit to that last red star, a Civil War Trails Site explaining this same battle again.  

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=208791

Battle of Eltham’s Landing
A vast array of equipment and thousands of troops
—1862 Peninsula Campaign—

In April 1862, Union forces under Gen. George B. McClellan began a major campaign to capture Richmond, marching west from Fort Monroe up the Peninsula between the York and James rivers towards the Confederate capital. A Confederate army half their size opposed them. Slowly but inevitably, the Federal juggernaut overcame three Southern defensive lines and was soon camped in Richmond’s eastern suburbs. New commander Robert E. Lee, however, led a Confederate offensive that drove the Union army away during the Seven Days’ Battles at the end of June.

By May 4, 1862, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army was retreating west toward Richmond from Yorktown as Union Gen. George B. McClellan’s army followed. McClellan, to accelerate the Federal advance on the Confederate capital and intercept Johnston, shipped half his force up the York River to West Point, the terminus of the Richmond and York Railroad at the junction of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers. Just east of here at Brickhouse Point on the York River, Gen. William B. Franklin’s division began disembarking on May 6 as Confederate cavalry scouts watched from the hills to the south.

By dawn on May 7, a vast array of equipment and thousands of troops had poured into the open fields. The cavalrymen reported the landing to Johnston at Barhamsville, three miles southwest of here. Johnston assigned Gen. Gustavus W. Smith to block the Federal advance, and Smith sent Gen. W.H.C. Whiting’s division forward. As Franklin’s division began moving south toward Barhamsville, Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood led his Texas brigade north with Col. Wade Hampton’s Legion on his right. Together they drove Franklin’s skirmish line back toward the river. Whiting soon discovered, however, that his men were within range of Federal gunboats in the York River but that the vessels were out of range of Confederate cannons. About 2 p.m., he disengaged and withdrew to Johnston’s main force. The Confederate army and its supply trains continued the retreat to Richmond. Whiting’s division had succeeded in delaying Franklin sufficiently for them to escape.

Sources include:

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/williamsburg

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battles-detail.htm?battleCode=va011

https://www.foxrunpub.com/books/fine-introduction-to-battle-hood/