Battle of Savage ' s Station The Battle of Savage ' s Station took place on June 29 , 1862 , in Henrico County , Virginia , as fourth of the Seven Days Battles ( Peninsula Campaign ) of the American Civil War . The main body of the Union Army of the Potomac began a general withdrawal toward the James River . Confederate Brig . Gen . John B . Magruder pursued along the railroad and the Williamsburg Road and struck Maj . Gen . Edwin Vose Sumner ' s II Corps ( the Union rearguard ) with three brigades near Savage ' s Station , while Maj . Gen . Thomas J . " Stonewall " Jackson ' s divisions were stalled north of the Chickahominy River . Union forces continued to withdraw across White Oak Swamp , abandoning supplies and more than 2 , 500 wounded soldiers in a field hospital . Background . The Seven Days Battles began with a Union attack in the minor Battle of Oak Grove on June 25 , 1862 , but Union Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan and his Army of the Potomac quickly lost the initiative as Confederate General Robert E . Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia began a series of attacks at Beaver Dam Creek on June 26 , Gaines ' Mill on June 27 , and the minor actions at Garnett ' s and Golding ' s Farm on June 27 and June 28 . The Army of the Potomac continued its retreat toward the James River . The bulk of McClellan ' s army concentrated around Savage ' s Station on the Richmond and York River Railroad , preparing for a difficult crossing through and around White Oak Swamp . It did so without centralized direction because McClellan had personally moved south of Malvern Hill after Gaines ' Mill without leaving directions for corps movements during the retreat nor naming a second in command . Clouds of black smoke filled the air as the Union troops were ordered to burn anything they could not carry . Union morale plummeted , particularly so for those wounded , who realized that they were not being evacuated from Savage ' s Station with the rest of the Army . Lee devised a complex plan to pursue and destroy McClellan ' s army . While the divisions of Maj . Gens . James Longstreet and A . P . Hill looped back toward Richmond and then southeast to the crossroads at Glendale , and Maj . Gen . Theophilus H . Holmes ' s division headed farther south , to the vicinity of Malvern Hill , Brig . Gen . John B . Magruder ' s division was ordered to move due east along the Williamsburg Road and the York River Railroad to attack the Federal rear guard . Stonewall Jackson , commanding his own division , as well as the divisions of Maj . Gen . D . H . Hill and Brig . Gen . William H . C . Whiting , was to rebuild a bridge over the Chickahominy and head due south to Savage ' s Station , where he would link up with Magruder and deliver a strong blow that might cause the Union Army to turn around and fight during its retreat . McClellan ' s rear guard at Savage ' s Station consisted of the II Corps , commanded by Brig . Gen . Edwin V . Sumner ( two divisions ) , the III Corps , under Brig . Gen . Samuel P . Heintzelman ( two divisions ) , and the VI Corps , under Brig . Gen . William B . Franklin ( one division ) . McClellan considered his senior corps commander , Sumner , to be incompetent , so he appointed no one to command the rear guard . Battle . Initial contact between the armies occurred at 9 a . m . on June 29 . On the farm and orchards owned by a Mr . Allen , about west of Savage ' s Station , two Georgia regiments from the brigade of Brig . Gen . George T . Anderson fought against two Pennsylvania regiments from Sumner ' s corps for about two hours before disengaging , suffering 28 casualties to the Pennsylvanians ' 119 . The highest ranking casualty was Confederate Brig . Gen . Richard Griffith , who was mortally wounded by a Union shell fragment . Magruder , who was alleged to be under the influence of morphine to combat a bout of indigestion , was confused and became concerned that he might be attacked by a superior force . He requested reinforcements from Lee , who ordered two brigades from the division of Maj . Gen . Benjamin Huger to assist , under the condition that they would have to be returned if they were not engaged by 2 p . m . Meanwhile , Jackson was not advancing as Lee had planned . He was taking time to rebuild bridges over the Chickahominy and he received a garbled order from Lee ' s chief of staff that made him believe he should stay north of the river and guard the crossings . These failures of the Confederate plan were being matched on the Union side , however . Heintzelman decided on his own that his corps was not needed to defend Savage ' s Station , Sumner ' s and Franklin ' s being sufficient , so he decided to follow the rest of the army without informing his fellow generals . Magruder was forced to give up the two brigades from Huger ' s division at 2 p . m . and was faced with the problem of attacking Sumner ' s 26 , 600 men with his own 14 , 000 . He hesitated until 5 p . m . , when he sent only two and a half brigades forward . Brig . Gen . Joseph B . Kershaw commanded the left flank , Brig . Gen . Paul J . Semmes the center , and Col . William Barksdale ( Griffith ' s Brigade ) the right . Franklin and Brig . Gen . John Sedgwick were on a reconnaissance to the west of Savage ' s Station when they saw Kershaw ' s brigade approaching . Their immediate assumption was that these were men from Heintzelman ' s corps , but they soon realized their mistake . This was the first indication of Heintzelman ' s unannounced departure and Sumner , for one , was particularly outraged , refusing to speak to Heintzelman the following day . Union artillery opened fire and pickets were sent forward to meet the assault . Magruder ' s attack was accompanied by the first armored railroad battery to be used in combat . Earlier in June , General Lee had hoped to counter the approach of McClellan ' s siege artillery by rail by using his own weapon : a 32 - pounder Brooke naval rifle , shielded by a sloping casemate of railroad iron , nicknamed the " Land Merrimack . " It was pushed by a locomotive at about the speed of the marching infantry . However , even with this impressive weapon , which outgunned anything the Federal artillerists possessed , the results of Magruder ' s decision to send only part of his smaller force against a much larger enemy were predictable . The first Union unit to engage was one of Sedgwick ' s brigades , Philadelphians led by Brig . Gen . William W . Burns , but his defensive line proved inadequate to cover the two brigade front of Kershaw and Semmes . Sumner managed this part of the battle erratically , selecting regiments for combat almost at random . He sent in two of Burns ' s regiments , and then the 1st Minnesota Infantry from another brigade in Sedgwick ' s division , and finally one regiment each from two different brigades in Brig . Gen . Israel B . Richardson ' s division . By the time all of these units reached the front , the two sides were at rough parity — two brigades each . Although Magruder had been conservative about his attack , Sumner was even more so . Of the 26 regiments he had in his corps , only 10 were engaged at Savage ' s Station . The fighting turned into a bloody stalemate as darkness fell and strong thunderstorms began to move in . The Land Merrimack bombarded the Union front , with some of its shells reaching as far to the rear as the field hospital . The final actions of the evening were by the Vermont Brigade , commanded by Colonel William T . H . Brooks , of Brig . Gen . William F . " Baldy " Smith ' s division . Attempting to hold the flank south of the Williamsburg Road , the Vermonters charged into the woods and were met with murderous fire , suffering more casualties of any brigade on the field that day . The brigade as a whole took 439 casualties ; the 5th Vermont regiment , commanded by Lt . Col . Lewis A . Grant , lost nearly half of its men , 209 of 428 . Aftermath . The battle was a stalemate at the cost of about 1 , 500 casualties on both sides , plus 2 , 500 previously wounded Union soldiers who were left to be captured when their field hospital was evacuated . Stonewall Jackson eventually crossed the river by about 2 : 30 a . m . on June 30 , but it was too late to crush the Union Army , as Lee had hoped . Most of the Army of the Potomac crossed White Oak Swamp Creek unmolested by noon on June 30 . General Lee reprimanded Magruder in a dispatch : " I regret much that you have made so little progress today in the pursuit of the enemy . In order to reap the fruits of our victory that pursuit should be most vigorous . . . . We must lose no more time or he will escape us entirely . " However , the fault for the lost opportunity must be shared equally with the poor staff work at Lee ' s own headquarters and a less than aggressive performance by Jackson . The Seven Days continued with the much larger Battle of Glendale and the Battle of White Oak Swamp on June 30 .