In the spring and summer of 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign, General George B. McClellan pushed a Union force up the Virginia Peninsula from Fort Monroe at the mouth of Hampton Roads in an attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. After McClellan's troops had taken Yorktown on the York River, his army followed the retreating Confederates, and gained another victory over them on May 5, 1862, at Williamsburg, the old colonial capital, which was located on high ground between the York and James Rivers about below the mouth of the Chickahominy. The Confederates retreated northwest and crossed the Chickahominy near the point where New Kent, Henrico, and Hanover counties border each other, in modern times known as Bottoms Bridge. A portion of the Union army followed them, while other portions remained east of the river.