Battle of Glendale The Battle of Glendale , also known as the Battle of Frayser ' s Farm , Frazier ' s Farm , Nelson ' s Farm , Charles City Crossroads , New Market Road , or Riddell ' s Shop , took place on June 30 , 1862 , in Henrico County , Virginia , on the sixth day of the Seven Days Battles ( Peninsula Campaign ) of the American Civil War . The Confederate divisions of Maj . Gens . Benjamin Huger , James Longstreet , and A . P . Hill converged on the retreating Union Army in the vicinity of Glendale or Frayser ' s Farm . Longstreet ' s and Hill ' s attacks penetrated the Union defense near Willis Church . Union counterattacks sealed the break and saved their line of retreat along the Willis Church Road . Huger ' s advance was stopped on the Charles City Road . The divisions led by Maj . Gen . Thomas J . " Stonewall " Jackson were delayed by Brig . Gen . William B . Franklin ' s corps at White Oak Swamp . Confederate Maj . Gen . Theophilus H . Holmes made a feeble attempt to attack the Union left flank at Turkey Bridge but was driven back . This had been Lee ' s best chance to cut off the Union army from the James River . That night , the Union army established a strong position on Malvern Hill . Background . The Seven Days Battles began with a Union attack in the minor Battle of Oak Grove on June 25 , 1862 , but McClellan quickly lost the initiative as Lee began a series of attacks at Beaver Dam Creek ( Mechanicsville ) on June 26 , Gaines ' s Mill on June 27 , the minor actions at Garnett ' s and Golding ' s Farm on June 27 and June 28 , and the attack on the Union rear guard at Savage ' s Station on June 29 . McClellan ' s Army of the Potomac continued its retreat toward the safety of Harrison ' s Landing on the James River . After Gaines ' s Mill , McClellan left his army with no clear instructions on routes of withdrawal and without naming a second - in - command . The bulk of the V Corps ( less McCall ) , under Brig . Gen . Fitz John Porter , moved to occupy Malvern Hill , while the remaining four corps of the Army of the Potomac were essentially operating independently in their fighting withdrawal . Most elements of the army had been able to cross White Oak Swamp Creek by noon on June 30 . About one third of the army had reached the James River , but the remainder was still marching between White Oak Swamp and Glendale . ( Glendale was the name of a tiny community at the intersection of the Charles City Road and the Quaker Road , or Willis Church Road , which led over Malvern Hill to the James River . ) After inspecting the line of march that morning , McClellan rode south and boarded the ironclad USS " Galena " on the James . Lee ordered his Army of Northern Virginia to converge on the retreating Union forces , bottlenecked on the inadequate road network . The Army of the Potomac , lacking overall command coherence , presented a discontinuous , ragged defensive line . Stonewall Jackson was ordered to press the Union rear guard at the White Oak Swamp crossing while the largest part of Lee ' s army , some 45 , 000 men , would attack the Army of the Potomac in mid - retreat at Glendale , about southwest , splitting it in two . Huger ' s division would strike first after a three - mile ( 5 km ) march on the Charles City Road , supported by Longstreet and A . P . Hill , whose divisions were about to the west , in a mass attack . Holmes was ordered to cannonade retreating Federals near Malvern Hill . Battle . As with most of the Seven Days Battles , Lee ' s plan was poorly executed . Huger was slowed by felled trees obstructing the Charles City Road , a result of the efforts of pioneers from Brig . Gen . Henry W . Slocum ' s division . Huger had his men spend hours chopping a new road through the thick woods in what became known as the " Battle of the Axes " . He failed to take any alternative route , and , fearing a counterattack , failed to participate in the battle . By 4 p . m . , Lee ordered Maj . Gen . John B . Magruder to join Holmes on the River Road and attack Malvern Hill , the left flank of the Union line , then ordered him to assist Longstreet , so his division spent the day countermarching . Stonewall Jackson moved slowly and spent the entire day north of the creek , making only feeble efforts to cross and attack Franklin ' s VI Corps in the Battle of White Oak Swamp , attempting to force back the enemy so that a destroyed bridge could be rebuilt , although adequate fords were nearby , by a fruitless artillery duel . ( Despite his stunning victories in the recent Valley Campaign , or perhaps due to the fatigue of that campaign , Jackson ' s contributions to the Seven Days were marred by slow execution and poor judgment throughout ) His presence did draw two of Brig . Gen . John Sedgwick ' s three brigades , which had been defending the Charles City crossroads , north as reinforcements . McCall ' s division had stopped at Charles City Crossroads on its march to rejoin Porter . The gap in the line left by Sedgwick was noticed and plugged by his three brigades . Holmes ' s inexperienced troops ( from his Department of North Carolina , attached to the Army of Northern Virginia ) made no progress against Porter at Turkey Bridge and Malvern Hill and were repulsed by artillery fire and by the Federal gunboats " Galena " and " Aroostook " on the James . At 2 p . m . , as they waited for sounds of Huger ' s expected attack , Lee , Longstreet , and visiting Confederate President Jefferson Davis were conferring on horseback when they came under heavy artillery fire , wounding two men and killing three horses . A . P . Hill , the commander in that sector , ordered the president and senior generals to the rear . Longstreet attempted to silence the six batteries of Federal guns firing in his direction , but long - range artillery fire proved to be inadequate . He ordered Col . Micah Jenkins to charge the batteries , which brought on a general fight around 4 p . m . Although belated and not initiated as planned , the assaults by the divisions of A . P . Hill and Longstreet , under Longstreet ' s overall command , turned out to be the only ones to follow Lee ' s order to attack the main Union concentration . Longstreet ' s 20 , 000 men were not reinforced by other Confederate divisions of Huger and Jackson , despite their concentration within a three - mile radius . They assaulted the disjointed Union line of 40 , 000 men , arranged in a arc north and south of the Glendale intersection , but the brunt of the fighting was centered on the position held by the Pennsylvania Reserves division of the V Corps , 6 , 000 men under Brig . Gen . George A . McCall , just west of the Nelson Farm owned by Nelson , north of Willis Church . ( The farm was owned by R . H . Nelson , but its former owner was named Frayser and many of the locals referred to it as Frayser ' s , or Frazier ' s , Farm . ) McCall ' s division included the brigades of Brig . Gen . George G . Meade on the right and Brig . Gen . Truman Seymour on the left , with the brigade of Brig . Gen . John F . Reynolds ( led by Col . Seneca G . Simmons since Reynolds ' s capture at Boatswain ' s Swamp after Gaines ' s Mill ) in reserve . Three Confederate brigades were sent forward in the assault , from north to south : Brig . Gen . Cadmus M . Wilcox , Col . Micah Jenkins ( Anderson ' s Brigade ) , and Brig . Gen . James L . Kemper . Longstreet ordered them forward in a piecemeal fashion , over several hours . Kemper ' s Virginians charged through the thick woods first and emerged in front of five batteries of McCall ' s artillery . In their first combat experience , the brigade conducted a disorderly but enthusiastic assault , which carried them through the guns and broke through McCall ' s main line with Jenkins ' s support , followed up a few hours later by Wilcox ' s brigade of Alabamians . The Confederate brigades met stiff resistance from Meade and Seymour in bitter hand - to - hand combat where men stabbed each other with bayonets and used rifles as clubs . Officers even took to using their ( normally ornamental ) swords as weapons . Meade was wounded in the fighting , two of his artillery batteries captured ( Lt . Alanson Randol ' s and Capt . James Cooper ' s ) , but one was retaken . McCall was captured when he mistakenly rode into the Confederate picket line , looking for positions to place his rallied men . On McCall ' s northern flank , the division of Brig . Gen . Philip Kearny held against repeated Confederate attacks with reinforcements of Caldwell ' s brigade and two brigades from Slocum ' s division . On the southern flank , Brig . Gen . Joseph Hooker ' s division repelled and once pursued minor attacks . Sedgwick ' s division , whose brigades had returned from near White Oak Swamp , came up to fill a gap after a brutal counterattack . Heavy fighting continued until about 8 : 30 p . m . Longstreet committed virtually every brigade in the divisions under his command , while on the Union side they had been fed in individually to plug holes in the line as they occurred . Aftermath . The battle was tactically inconclusive , although Lee failed to achieve his objective of preventing the Federal escape and crippling McClellan ' s army , if not destroying it . Longstreet ' s performance had been poor , sending in brigade after brigade in a piecemeal fashion , rather than striking with concentrated force in the manner for which he would be known later in the war . He also was not supported by Huger and Jackson , as Lee had planned . Instead of attacking , both generals merely kept their divisions on the north side of White Oak Swamp and launching no action other than an occasional artillery exchange . Union casualties were 3 , 797 ( 297 killed , 1 , 696 wounded , and 1 , 804 missing or captured ) . Confederate casualties were comparable in total — 3 , 673 ( 638 killed , 2 , 814 wounded , and 221 missing ) — but more than 40 % higher in killed and wounded . Longstreet lost more than a quarter of his division . Union generals Meade and Edwin V . Sumner and Confederate generals Joseph R . Anderson , Dorsey Pender , and Winfield S . Featherston were wounded . On the evening of June 30 , McClellan , who had witnessed none of the fighting , wired the War Department : " My Army has behaved superbly and have done all that men could do . If none of us escape we shall at least have done honor to the country . I shall do my best to save the Army . " He later requested 50 , 000 reinforcements ( which the War Department had no chance of providing ) . " With them , I will retrieve our fortunes . " McClellan has received significant criticism from historians about his detachment from the battle , sailing on the " Galena " out of touch while his men fought . Ethan Rafuse wrote that after McClellan supervised the deployment of three corps near the Glendale crossroads , what he did next " almost defies belief . . . . Even though his men were at the time engaged in a fierce battle near Glendale . . . he spent the afternoon on board the " Galena " , dining with [ Captain ] Rodgers and traveling briefly up river to watch the gunboat shelling of a Confederate division that had been spotted marching east along the River road toward Malvern Hill . " Brian K . Burton wrote that , " more than on any other day , McClellan ' s judgment on the thirtieth is suspect . He had arranged for signal communications between Malvern Hill and the river but that is a poor substitute . To leave units from five different corps at a vital point with no overall commander is to court disaster . " Stephen W . Sears wrote when McClellan deserted his army on the Glendale and Malvern Hill battlefields during the Seven Days , he was guilty of dereliction of duty . " After the battle , Lee wrote , " Could the other commands have cooperated in this action , the result would have proved most disastrous to the enemy . " Confederate Maj . Gen . D . H . Hill was even more direct : " Had all our troops been at Frayser ' s Farm , there would have been no Malvern Hill . " Confederate Brig . Gen . Edward Porter Alexander wrote after the war that , " Never , before or after , did the fates put such a prize within our reach . It is my individual belief that on two occasions in the four years , we were within reach of military successes so great that we might have hoped to end the war with our independence . . . . The first was at Bull Run [ in ] July 1861 . . . This [ second ] chance of June 30 , 1862 impresses me as the best of all . " Lee would have only one more opportunity to intercept McClellan ' s army before it reached the safety of the river and the end of the Seven Days , at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1 . Part of the battle took place on Gravel Hill , a community established for slaves freed by Quaker Robert Pleasants before 1800 . Although what had been once the historic Gravel Hill School had been destroyed , it was replaced by Gravel Hill Baptist Church in 1866 , and the community remains close - knit today .