Battle of Seven Pines The Battle of Seven Pines , also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks or Fair Oaks Station , took place on May 31 and June 1 , 1862 , in Henrico County , Virginia , as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War . It was the culmination of an offensive up the Virginia Peninsula by Union Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan , in which the Army of the Potomac reached the outskirts of Richmond . On May 31 , Confederate General Joseph E . Johnston attempted to overwhelm two Federal corps that appeared isolated south of the Chickahominy River . The Confederate assaults , although not well coordinated , succeeded in driving back the IV Corps and inflicting heavy casualties . Reinforcements arrived , and both sides fed more and more troops into the action . Supported by the III Corps and Maj . Gen . John Sedgwick ' s division of Maj . Gen . Edwin V . Sumner ' s II Corps ( which crossed the rain - swollen river on Grapevine Bridge ) , the Federal position was finally stabilized . Gen . Johnston was seriously wounded during the action , and command of the Confederate army devolved temporarily to Maj . Gen . G . W . Smith . On June 1 , the Confederates renewed their assaults against the Federals , who had brought up more reinforcements , but made little headway . Both sides claimed victory . Although the battle was tactically inconclusive , it was the largest battle in the Eastern Theater up to that time ( and second only to Shiloh in terms of casualties thus far , about 11 , 000 total ) and marked the end of the Union offensive , leading to the Seven Days Battles and Union retreat in late June . Background . Johnston withdrew his 60 , 000 - man army from the Virginia Peninsula as McClellan ' s army pursued him and approached the Confederate capital of Richmond . Johnston ' s defensive line began at the James River at Drewry ' s Bluff , site of the recent Confederate naval victory , and extended counterclockwise so that his center and left were behind the Chickahominy River , a natural barrier in the spring when it turned the broad plains to the east of Richmond into swamps . Johnston ' s men burned most of the bridges over the Chickahominy and settled into strong defensive positions north and east of the city . McClellan positioned his 105 , 000 - man army to focus on the northeast sector , for two reasons . First , the Pamunkey River , which ran roughly parallel to the Chickahominy , offered a line of communication that could enable McClellan to get around Johnston ' s left flank . Second , McClellan anticipated the arrival of the I Corps under Maj . Gen . Irwin McDowell , scheduled to march south from Fredericksburg to reinforce his army , and thus needed to protect their avenue of approach . The Army of the Potomac pushed slowly up the Pamunkey , establishing supply bases at Eltham ' s Landing , Cumberland Landing , and White House Landing . White House , the plantation of W . H . F . " Rooney " Lee , son of General Robert E . Lee , became McClellan ' s base of operations . Using the Richmond and York River Railroad , McClellan could bring his heavy siege artillery to the outskirts of Richmond . He moved slowly and deliberately , reacting to faulty intelligence that led him to believe the Confederates outnumbered him significantly . By the end of May , the army had built bridges across the Chickahominy and was facing Richmond , straddling the river , with one third of the Army south of the river , two thirds north . Opposing forces . The Union army of 105 , 000 men was near the outskirts of Richmond to the northeast , straddling the Chickahominy River . There were three Corps north of the river , protecting the Union railroad supply line : the V Corps under Brig . Gen . Fitz John Porter ; the VI Corps , under Brig . Gen . William B . Franklin ; and the II Corps , under Brig . Gen . Edwin V . Sumner . South of the river were the IV Corps , under Brig . Gen . Erasmus D . Keyes , in a position far forward and close to the Confederate lines ; and the III Corps , under Brig . Gen . Samuel P . Heintzelman . At the start of the battle on May 31 , McClellan was confined to bed , ill with a flare - up of his chronic malaria . Johnston had 60 , 000 men in his Army of Northern Virginia protecting the works of Richmond . His command consisted of the Right Wing , under Maj . Gen . James Longstreet ( the divisions of Brig . Gen . Richard H . Anderson , commanding Longstreet ' s division , Maj . Gen . D . H . Hill , and Brig . Gen . Benjamin Huger ) , the Left Wing , under Maj . Gen . G . W . Smith ( the divisions of Brig . Gen . William H . C . Whiting , commanding Smith ' s division , and Maj . Gen . A . P . Hill ) , and the Reserve , under Maj . Gen . John B . Magruder ( the divisions of Brig . Gens . Lafayette McLaws and David R . Jones ) . Johnston ' s plan . Johnston , who had retreated up the Peninsula to the outskirts of Richmond , knew that he could not survive a massive siege and decided to attack McClellan . His original plan was to attack the Union right flank , north of the Chickahominy River , before McDowell ' s corps , marching south from Fredericksburg , could arrive . However , on May 27 , the same day the Battle of Hanover Court House was fought northeast of Richmond , Johnston learned that McDowell ' s corps had been diverted to the Shenandoah Valley and would not be reinforcing the Army of the Potomac . He decided against attacking across his own natural defense line , the Chickahominy , and planned to capitalize on the Union army ' s straddle of the river by attacking the two corps south of the river , leaving them isolated from the other three corps north of the river . If executed correctly , Johnston would engage two thirds of his army ( 22 of its 29 infantry brigades , about 51 , 000 men ) against the 33 , 000 men in the III and IV Corps . The Confederate attack plan was complex , calling for the divisions of A . P . Hill and Magruder to engage lightly and distract the Union forces north of the river , while Longstreet , commanding the main attack south of the river , was to converge on Keyes from three directions : six brigades under Longstreet ' s immediate command and four brigades under D . H . Hill were to advance on separate roads at a crossroads known as Seven Pines ( because of seven large pine trees clustered at that location ) ; three brigades under Huger were assigned to support Hill ' s right ; Whiting ' s division was to follow Longstreet ' s column as a reserve . The plan had an excellent potential for initial success because the division of the IV Corps farthest forward , manning the earthworks a mile west of Seven Pines , was that of Brig . Gen . Silas Casey , 6 , 000 men who were the least experienced in Keyes ' s corps . If Keyes could be defeated , the III Corps , to the east , could be pinned against the Chickahominy and overwhelmed . The complex plan was mismanaged from the start . Johnston chose to issue his orders to Longstreet orally in a long and rambling meeting on May 30 . The other generals received written orders that were vague and contradictory . He also failed to notify all of the division commanders that Longstreet was in tactical command south of the river . ( This missing detail was a serious oversight because both Huger and Smith technically outranked Longstreet . ) On Longstreet ' s part , he either misunderstood his orders or chose to modify them without informing Johnston . Rather than taking his assigned avenue of advance on the Nine Mile Road , his column joined Hill ' s on the Williamsburg Road , which not only delayed the advance , but limited the attack to a narrow front with only a fraction of its total force . Exacerbating the problems on both sides was a severe thunderstorm on the night of May 30 , which flooded the river , destroyed most of the Union bridges , and turned the roads into morasses of mud . Battle . The attack got off to a bad start on May 31 when Longstreet marched down the Charles City Road and turned onto the Williamsburg Road instead of the Nine Mile Road . Huger ' s orders had not specified a time that the attack was scheduled to start and he was not awakened until he heard a division marching nearby . Johnston and his second - in - command , Smith , unaware of Longstreet ' s location or Huger ' s delay , waited at their headquarters for word of the start of the battle . Five hours after the scheduled start , at 1 p . m . , D . H . Hill became impatient and sent his brigades forward against Casey ' s division . Casey ' s line , manned by inexperienced troops , buckled with some men retreating , but fought fiercely for possession of their earthworks , resulting in heavy casualties on both sides . The Confederates only engaged four brigades of the thirteen on their right flank that day , so they did not hit with the power that they could have concentrated on this weak point in the Union line . Casey sent for reinforcements but Keyes was slow in responding . Eventually the mass of Confederates broke through , seized a Union redoubt , and Casey ' s men retreated to the second line of defensive works at Seven Pines . During this period , both of the high commanders were unaware of the severity of the battle . As late as 2 : 30 p . m . , Heintzelman reported to McClellan , still sick in bed , that he had received no word from Keyes . Johnston was only 2½ miles from the front , but an acoustic shadow prevented him from hearing the sounds of cannons and musketry and he and his staff did not know the battle had begun until 4 p . m . The Army of the Potomac was accompanied by the Union Army Balloon Corps commanded by Prof . Thaddeus S . C . Lowe , who had established two balloon camps on the north side of the river , one at Gaines ' s Farm and one at Mechanicsville . Lowe reported on May 29 the buildup of Confederate forces to the left of New Bridge or in front of the Fair Oaks train station . With constant rain on May 30 and heavy winds the morning of May 31 , the aerostat s " Washington " and " Intrepid " did not launch until noon . Lowe observed Confederate troops moving in battle formation and this information was relayed verbally to McClellan ' s headquarters by 2 p . m . Lowe continued to send reports from the " Intrepid " via telegraph the remainder of May 31 . On June 1 , Lowe reported that the Confederate barracks to the left of Richmond as being free from smoke . McClellan did not follow up on this information with a counterattack by his corps north of the Chickahominy River . Around 4 : 40 p . m . , Hill , now strengthened by reinforcements from Longstreet , hit the secondary Union line near Seven Pines , which was manned by the remnants of Casey ' s division , the IV Corps division of Brig . Gen . Darius N . Couch , and Brig . Gen . Philip Kearny ' s division from Heintzelman ' s III Corps . Hill organized a flanking maneuver , sending four regiments under Colonel Micah Jenkins from Longstreet ' s command to attack Keyes ' s right flank . The attack collapsed the Federal line back to the Williamsburg Road , a mile and a half beyond Seven Pines . The fighting in that part of the line died out by 7 : 30 p . m . Just before Hill ' s attack began , Johnston received a note from Longstreet requesting that he join the battle , the first news he had heard of the fighting . Johnston went forward on the Nine Mile Road with three brigades of Whiting ' s division and encountered stiff resistance near Fair Oaks Station , the right flank of Keyes ' s line . Soon heavy Union reinforcements arrived . Brig . Gen . Edwin C . Sumner , II Corps commander , heard the sounds of battle from his position north of the river . On McClellan ' s orders , he dispatched a division under Brig . Gen . John Sedgwick over the sole remaining bridge . The treacherous " Grapevine Bridge " was near collapse from the swollen river , but the weight of the crossing troops helped to hold it steady against the rushing water . When told that the river could not be crossed , Sumner replied " Impossible ! ? Sir , I tell you I can cross ! I am ordered ! " After the last man had crossed safely , the bridge collapsed and was swept away . Sedgwick ' s men provided the key to resisting Whiting ' s attack . The fighting was costly as Whiting lost three of four brigade commanders . Brig . Gen . Wade Hampton went down wounded , Robert H . Hatton was killed , and J . Johnston Pettigrew was wounded and captured . On the Union side , Brig . Gen . Oliver O . Howard had his right arm shattered by a Minié ball . The arm was amputated , and he would not return to action for several months . The most historically significant incident of the day occurred around dusk , when Johnston was struck in the right shoulder by a bullet , immediately followed by a shell fragment hitting him in the chest . He fell unconscious from his horse with a broken right shoulder blade and two broken ribs and was evacuated to Richmond . G . W . Smith assumed temporary command of the army . Smith , plagued with ill health , was indecisive about the next steps for the battle and made a bad impression on Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E . Lee , Davis ' s military adviser . After the end of fighting the following day , Davis replaced Smith with Lee as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia . On June 1 , the Confederates renewed their assaults against the Federals , who had brought up more reinforcements and fought from strong positions , but made little headway . Brig . Gen . Israel B . Richardson ' s division of the II Corps had arrived , along with two brigades from Brig . Gen . Joseph Hooker ' s division of the III Corps ( the third under Brig . Gen Cuvier Grover was left behind to guard the bridges at White Oak Swamp ) . They engaged Huger ' s and Longstreet ' s divisions , whose lines finally broke under the attacks . The fighting ended about 11 : 30 a . m . when the Confederates withdrew . McClellan arrived on the battlefield from his sick bed at about this time , but the Union Army did not counterattack . Aftermath . Both sides claimed victory with roughly equal casualties , but neither side ' s accomplishment was impressive . George B . McClellan ' s advance on Richmond was halted and the Army of Northern Virginia fell back into the Richmond defensive works . Union casualties were 5 , 031 ( 790 killed , 3 , 594 wounded , 647 captured or missing ) and Confederate 6 , 134 ( 980 killed , 4 , 749 wounded , 405 captured or missing ) . The battle was frequently remembered by the Union soldiers as the Battle of Fair Oaks Station because that is where they did their best fighting , whereas the Confederates , for the same reason , called it Seven Pines . Historian Stephen W . Sears remarked that its current common name , Seven Pines , is the most appropriate because it was at the crossroads of Seven Pines that the heaviest fighting and highest casualties occurred . Despite claiming victory , McClellan was shaken by the experience . He wrote to his wife , " I am tired of the sickening sight of the battlefield , with its mangled corpses & poor suffering wounded ! Victory has no charms for me when purchased at such cost . " He redeployed all of his army except for the V Corps south of the river , and although he continued to plan for a siege and the capture of Richmond , he lost the strategic initiative . An offensive begun by the new Confederate commander , Gen . Robert E . Lee , would be planned while the Union troops passively sat in the outskirts of Richmond . The Seven Days Battles of June 25 through July 1 , 1862 , drove the Union Army back to the James River and saved the Confederate capital . The change in leadership of the Confederate Army in the field as a result of Seven Pines had a profound effect on the war . On June 24 , 1862 , McClellan ' s massive Army of the Potomac was within of the Confederate capital of Richmond ; Union soldiers wrote that they could hear church bells ringing in the city . Within 90 days , however , Robert E . Lee had driven McClellan from the Peninsula , Pope had been soundly beaten at the Second Battle of Bull Run , and the battle lines were from the Union capital in Washington . It would take almost two more years before the Union Army again got that close to Richmond , and almost three years before it finally captured it .