Seven Days Battles The Seven Days Battles was a series of six major battles over the seven days from June 25 to July 1 , 1862 , near Richmond , Virginia during the American Civil War . Confederate General Robert E . Lee drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac , commanded by Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan , away from Richmond and into a retreat down the Virginia Peninsula . The series of battles is sometimes known erroneously as the Seven Days Campaign , but it was actually the culmination of the Peninsula Campaign , not a separate campaign in its own right . The Seven Days began on June 25 , 1862 , with a Union attack in the minor Battle of Oak Grove , 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 . Lee ' s final opportunity to intercept the Union Army was at the Battle of Glendale on June 30 , but poorly executed orders allowed his enemy to escape to a strong defensive position on Malvern Hill . At the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1 , Lee launched futile frontal assaults and suffered heavy casualties in the face of strong infantry and artillery defenses . The Seven Days ended with McClellan ' s army in relative safety next to the James River , having suffered almost 16 , 000 casualties during the retreat . Lee ' s army , which had been on the offensive during the Seven Days , lost over 20 , 000 . As Lee became convinced that McClellan would not resume his threat against Richmond , he moved north for the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Maryland Campaign . Start of the Peninsula Campaign . The Peninsula Campaign was the unsuccessful attempt by McClellan to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond and end the war . It started in March 1862 , when McClellan landed his army at Fort Monroe and moved northwest , up the Virginia Peninsula beginning in early April . Confederate Brig . Gen . John B . Magruder ' s defensive position on the Warwick Line caught McClellan by surprise . His hopes for a quick advance foiled , McClellan ordered his army to prepare for a siege of Yorktown . Just before the siege preparations were completed , the Confederates , now under the direct command of Johnston , began a withdrawal toward Richmond . The first heavy fighting of the campaign occurred in the Battle of Williamsburg ( May 5 ) , in which the Union troops managed some tactical victories , but the Confederates continued their withdrawal . An amphibious flanking movement to Eltham ' s Landing ( May 7 ) was ineffective in cutting off the Confederate retreat . In the Battle of Drewry ' s Bluff ( May 15 ) , an attempt by the United States Navy to reach Richmond by way of the James River was repulsed . As McClellan ' s army reached the outskirts of Richmond , a minor battle occurred at Hanover Court House ( May 27 ) , but it was followed by a surprise attack by Johnston at the Battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks on May 31 and June 1 . The battle was inconclusive , with heavy casualties , but it had lasting effects on the campaign . Johnston was wounded and replaced on June 1 by the more aggressive Robert E . Lee . Lee spent almost a month extending his defensive lines and organizing his Army of Northern Virginia ; McClellan accommodated this by sitting passively to his front , waiting for dry weather and roads , until the start of the Seven Days . Lee , who had developed a reputation for caution early in the war , knew he had no numerical superiority over McClellan , but he planned an offensive campaign that was the first indication of the aggressive nature he would display for the remainder of the war . Opposing forces . The armies that fought in the Seven Days Battles comprised almost 200 , 000 men , which offered the potential for the largest battles of the war . However , the inexperience or caution of the generals involved usually prevented the appropriate concentration of forces and mass necessary for decisive tactical victories . Union . McClellan ' s Army of the Potomac , with approximately 104 , 000 men , was organized largely as it had been at Seven Pines . Confederate . Lee ' s Army of Northern Virginia was larger than the one he inherited from Johnston , and , at about 92 , 000 men , the largest Confederate army assembled during the war . Planning for offensives . Lee ' s initial attack plan , similar to Johnston ' s plan at Seven Pines , was complex and required expert coordination and execution by all of his subordinates , but Lee knew that he could not win in a battle of attrition or siege against the Union Army . It was developed at a meeting on June 23 . The Union Army straddled the rain - swollen Chickahominy River , with the bulk of the army , four corps , arrayed in a semicircular line south of the river . The remainder , the V Corps under Brig . Gen . Fitz John Porter , was north of the river near Mechanicsville in an L - shaped line facing north - south behind Beaver Dam Creek and southeast along the Chickahominy . Lee ' s plan was to cross the Chickahominy with the bulk of his army to attack the Union north flank , leaving only two divisions ( under Maj . Gens . Benjamin Huger and John B . Magruder ) to hold a line of entrenchments against McClellan ' s superior strength . This would concentrate about 65 , 500 troops to oppose 30 , 000 , leaving only 25 , 000 to protect Richmond and to contain the other 60 , 000 men of the Union Army . The Confederate cavalry under Brig . Gen . J . E . B . Stuart had reconnoitered Porter ' s right flank ( as part of a daring , although militarily pointless , circumnavigation of the entire Union Army from June 12 to June 15 ) and found it vulnerable . Lee intended for Jackson to attack Porter ' s right flank early on the morning of June 26 , and A . P . Hill would move from Meadow Bridge to Beaver Dam Creek , which flows into the Chickahominy , advancing on the Federal trenches . ( Lee hoped that Porter would evacuate his trenches under pressure , obviating the need for a direct frontal assault . ) Following this , Longstreet and D . H . Hill would pass through Mechanicsville and join the battle . Huger and Magruder would provide diversions on their fronts to distract McClellan as to Lee ' s real intentions . Lee hoped that Porter would be overwhelmed from two sides by the mass of 65 , 000 men , and the two leading Confederate divisions would move on Cold Harbor and cut McClellan ' s communications with White House Landing . McClellan also planned an offensive . He had received intelligence that Lee was prepared to move and that the arrival of Maj . Gen . Thomas J . " Stonewall " Jackson ' s force from the Shenandoah Valley was imminent . ( McClellan was aware of Jackson ' s presence at Ashland Station , but did nothing to reinforce Porter ' s vulnerable corps north of the river . ) He decided to resume the offensive before Lee could . Anticipating Jackson ' s reinforcements marching from the north , he increased cavalry patrols on likely avenues of approach . He wanted to advance his siege artillery about a mile and a half closer to the city by taking the high ground on Nine Mile Road around Old Tavern . In preparation for that , he planned an attack on Oak Grove , south of Old Tavern and the Richmond and York River Railroad , which would position his men to attack Old Tavern from two directions . The Seven Days . Oak Grove . McClellan planned to advance to the west , along the axis of the Williamsburg Road , in the direction of Richmond . Between the two armies was a small , dense forest , wide , bisected by the headwaters of White Oak Swamp . Two divisions of the III Corps were selected for the assault , commanded by Brig . Gens . Joseph Hooker and Philip Kearny . Facing them was the division of Confederate Maj . Gen . Benjamin Huger . Soon after 8 a . m . , June 25 , the Union brigade s of Brig . Gens . Daniel E . Sickles ( the Excelsior Brigade ) , Cuvier Grover , both of Hooker ' s division , and John C . Robinson stepped off . Although Robinson and Grover made good progress on the left and in the center , Sickles ' s New Yorkers encountered difficulties moving through their abatis , then through the upper portions of the swamp , and finally met stiff Confederate resistance , all of which threw the Federal line out of alignment . Huger took advantage of the confusion by launching a counterattack with the brigade of Brig . Gen . Ambrose R . Wright against Grover ' s brigade . At a crucial moment in the battle , the 25th North Carolina of Brig . Gen . Robert Ransom ' s brigade , in their first combat engagement , delivered a perfectly synchronized volley of rifle fire against Sickles ' s brigade , breaking up its delayed attack and sending the 71st New York into a panicked retreat , which Sickles described as " disgraceful confusion . " Heintzelman ordered reinforcements sent forward and also notified army commander McClellan , who was attempting to manage the battle by telegraph from away . McClellan ordered his men to withdraw back to their entrenchments , mystifying his subordinates on the scene . Arriving at the front at 1 p . m . , seeing that the situation was not as bad as he had feared , McClellan ordered his men forward to retake the ground for which they had already fought once that day . The fighting lasted until nightfall . The minor battle was McClellan ' s only tactical offensive action against Richmond . His attack gained only at a cost of over 1 , 000 casualties on both sides and was not strong enough to derail the offensive planned by Robert E . Lee , which already had been set in motion . Beaver Dam Creek ( Mechanicsville ) . Lee ' s plan called for Jackson to begin the attack on Porter ' s north flank early on June 26 . A . P . Hill ' s Light Division was to advance from Meadow Bridge when he heard Jackson ' s guns , clear the Union pickets from Mechanicsville , and then move to Beaver Dam Creek . D . H . Hill and Longstreet were to pass through Mechanicsville and support Jackson and A . P . Hill . South of the river , Magruder and Huger were to demonstrate to deceive the four Union corps on their front . Lee ' s intricate plan went awry immediately . Jackson ' s men , fatigued from their recent campaign and lengthy march , ran at least four hours behind schedule . By 3 p . m . , A . P . Hill grew impatient and began his attack without orders , a frontal assault with 11 , 000 men . Porter extended and strengthened his right flank and fell back to concentrate along Beaver Dam Creek and Ellerson ' s Mill . There , 14 , 000 well entrenched soldiers , aided by 32 guns in six batteries , repulsed repeated Confederate attacks with substantial casualties . Jackson and his command arrived late in the afternoon and he ordered his troops to bivouac for the evening while a major battle was raging within earshot . His proximity to Porter ' s flank caused McClellan to order Porter to withdraw after dark behind Boatswain ' s Swamp , to the east . McClellan was concerned that the Confederate buildup on his right flank threatened his supply line , the Richmond and York River Railroad north of the Chickahominy , and he decided to shift his base of supply to the James River . He also believed that the diversions by Huger and Magruder south of the river meant that he was seriously outnumbered . ( He reported to Washington that he faced 200 , 000 Confederates , but there were actually 85 , 000 . ) This was a strategic decision of grave importance because it meant that , without the railroad to supply his army , he would be forced to abandon his siege of Richmond . A . P . Hill , now with Longstreet and D . H . Hill behind him , continued his attack , despite orders from Lee to hold his ground . His assault was beaten back with heavy casualties . Overall , the battle was a Union tactical victory , in which the Confederates suffered heavy casualties and achieved none of their specific objectives due to the seriously flawed execution of Lee ' s plan . Instead of over 60 , 000 men crushing the enemy ' s flank , only five brigades , about 15 , 000 men , had seen action . Their losses were 1 , 484 versus Porter ' s 361 . Despite the short - term Union success , however , it was the start of a strategic debacle . McClellan began to withdraw his army to the southeast and never regained the initiative . Gaines ' s Mill . By the morning of June 27 , the Union forces were concentrated into a semicircle with Porter collapsing his line into an east - west salient north of the river and the four corps south of the river remaining in their original positions . McClellan ordered Porter to hold Gaines ' s Mill at all costs so that the army could change its base of supply to the James River . Several of McClellan ' s subordinates urged him to attack Magruder ' s division south of the river , but he feared the vast numbers of Confederates he believed to be before him and refused to capitalize on the overwhelming superiority he actually held on that front . Lee continued his offensive on June 27 , launching the largest Confederate attack of the war , about 57 , 000 men in six divisions . A . P . Hill resumed his attack across Beaver Dam Creek early in the morning , but found the line lightly defended . By early afternoon , he ran into strong opposition by Porter , deployed along Boatswain ' s Creek and the swampy terrain was a major obstacle against the attack . As Longstreet arrived to the south of A . P . Hill , he saw the difficulty of attacking over such terrain and delayed until Stonewall Jackson could attack on Hill ' s left . For the second time in the Seven Days , however , Jackson was late . D . H . Hill attacked the Federal right and was held off by the division of Brig . Gen . George Sykes ; he backed off to await Jackson ' s arrival . Longstreet was ordered to conduct a diversionary attack to stabilize the lines until Jackson could arrive and attack from the north . In Longstreet ' s attack , Brig . Gen . George E . Pickett ' s brigade attempted a frontal assault and was beaten back under severe fire with heavy losses . Jackson finally reached D . H . Hill ' s position at 3 p . m . and began his assault at 4 : 30 p . m . Porter ' s line was saved by Brig . Gen . Henry W . Slocum ' s division moving into position to bolster his defense . Shortly after dark , the Confederates mounted another attack , poorly coordinated , but this time collapsing the Federal line . Brig . Gen . John Bell Hood ' s Texas Brigade opened a gap in the line , as did Pickett ' s Brigade on its second attempt of the day . By 4 a . m . on June 28 , Porter withdrew across the Chickahominy , burning the bridges behind him . For the second day , Magruder was able to continue fooling McClellan south of the river by employing minor diversionary attacks . He was able to occupy 60 , 000 Federal troops while the heavier action occurred north of the river . Gaines ' s Mill was the only clear - cut Confederate tactical victory of the Peninsula Campaign . Union casualties from the 34 , 214 engaged were 6 , 837 ( 894 killed , 3 , 107 wounded , and 2 , 836 captured or missing ) . Of the 57 , 018 Confederates engaged , losses totaled 7 , 993 ( 1 , 483 killed , 6 , 402 wounded , 108 missing or captured ) . Since the Confederate assault was conducted against only a small portion of the Union Army ( the V Corps , one fifth of the army ) , the army emerged from the battle in relatively good shape overall . However , although McClellan had already planned to shift his supply base to the James River , his defeat unnerved him and he precipitously decided to abandon his advance on Richmond . Union withdrawal . The night of June 27 , McClellan ordered his entire army to withdraw to a secure base at Harrison ' s Landing on the James . His actions have puzzled military historians ever since . He was actually in a strong position , having withstood strong Confederate attacks , while having deployed only one of his five corps in battle . Porter had performed well against heavy odds . Furthermore , McClellan was aware that the War Department had created a new Army of Virginia and ordered it to be sent to the Peninsula to reinforce him . But Lee had unnerved him , and he surrendered the initiative . He sent a telegram to the Secretary of War that included the statement : " If I save this Army now I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or any other persons in Washington — you have done your best to sacrifice this Army . " ( The military telegraph department chose to omit this sentence from the copy given to the Secretary . ) McClellan ordered Keyes ' s IV Corps to move west of Glendale and protect the army ' s withdrawal , and Porter was to move to the high ground at Malvern Hill to develop defensive positions . The supply trains were ordered to move south toward the river . McClellan departed for Harrison ' s Landing without specifying any exact routes of withdrawal and without designating a second - in - command . For the remainder of the Seven Days , he had no direct command of the battles . Gaines ' s Mill and the Union retreat across the Chickahominy was a psychological victory for the Confederacy , signaling that Richmond was out of danger . Lee ' s cavalry reported that Union troops had abandoned their defense of the Richmond and York River Railroad and the White House supply depot on the York River . That information , plus the sighting of large dust clouds south of the Chickahominy River , finally convinced Lee that McClellan was heading for the James . Until this time , Lee anticipated that McClellan would be withdrawing to the east to protect his supply line to the York River and positioned his forces to react to that , unable to act decisively while he awaited evidence of McClellan ' s intentions . Garnett ' s & Golding ' s Farm . While Lee ' s main attack at Gaines ' s Mill was progressing on June 27 , the Confederates south of the Chickahominy performed a reconnaissance in force to determine the location of McClellan ' s retreating army . Magruder ordered Brig . Gen . Robert A . Toombs ' s brigade forward to " feel the enemy . " Toombs , a Georgia politician with a disdain for professional officers , instead launched a sharp attack at dusk against Baldy Smith ' s VI Corps division near Old Tavern at the farm of James M . Garnett . The attack was easily repulsed by the brigade of Brig . Gen . Winfield S . Hancock . On June 28 , Toombs again was ordered to conduct a reconnaissance , but turned it into an attack over the same ground , meeting the enemy at the farm of Simon Gouldin ( also known as Golding ) . Toombs took it upon himself to order his fellow brigade commander , Col . George T . Anderson , to join the assault . Two of Anderson ' s regiments , the 7th and 8th Georgia , preceded Toombs ' s brigade into the assault and were subjected to a vigorous Federal counterattack by the 49th Pennsylvania and 43rd New York , losing 156 men . These were the only attacks south of the Chickahominy River in conjunction with Gaines ' s Mill , but they helped to convince McClellan that he was being subjected to attacks from all directions , increasing his anxiety and his determination to get his army to safety at the James . Savage ' s Station . On June 29 , the bulk of McClellan ' s army concentrated around Savage ' s Station on the Richmond and York River Railroad , a Federal supply depot since just before Seven Pines , 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 ' s 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 . Longstreet ' s and A . P . Hill ' s divisions looped back toward Richmond and then southeast to the crossroads at Glendale , Holmes ' s division headed farther south , to the vicinity of Malvern Hill , and Magruder ' s division was ordered to move due east to attack the Federal rear guard . Stonewall Jackson , commanding three divisions , 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 five divisions from Sumner ' s II Corps , Heintzelman ' s III Corps , and Franklin ' s VI Corps . McClellan considered his senior corps commander , Sumner , to be incompetent , so he appointed no one to command the rear guard . Initial contact between the armies occurred at 9 a . m . on June 29 , a four - regiment fight about west of Savage ' s Station , lasting for about two hours before disengaging . 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 , so he decided to follow the rest of the army without informing his fellow generals . Magruder 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 . Union artillery opened fire and pickets were sent forward to meet the assault . The two brigade front of Kershaw and Semmes began to push the narrow defensive line of one of Sedgwick ' s brigades . Sumner managed this part of the battle erratically , selecting regiments for combat from multiple brigades almost at random . 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 " — the first instance of an armored railroad battery to be used in combat — bombarded the Union front , with some of its shells reaching as far to the rear as the field hospital . The final action of the evening was as the Vermont Brigade , attempting to hold the flank south of the Williamsburg Road , charged into the woods and were met with murderous fire , suffering more casualties of any brigade on the field that day . There were 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 . General Lee reprimanded Magruder , but 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 . Glendale ( Frayser ' s Farm ) and White Oak Swamp . Most elements of the Union 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 . After inspecting the line of march that morning , McClellan rode south and boarded the ironclad USS " Galena " on the James . Lee ordered his army 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 capture Malvern Hill . The Confederate plan was once again marred by poor execution . Huger ' s men were slowed by felled trees obstructing the Charles City Road , spending hours chopping a new road through the thick woods . Huger failed to take any alternative route , and , fearing a counterattack , failed to participate in the battle . Magruder marched around aimlessly , unable to decide whether he should be aiding Longstreet or Holmes ; by 4 p . m . , Lee ordered Magruder to join Holmes on the River Road and attack Malvern Hill . 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 rebuild a destroyed bridge , although adequate fords were nearby , and engaging in a pointless artillery duel . Jackson ' s inaction allowed some units to be detached from Franklin ' s corps in late afternoon to reinforce the Union troops at Glendale . Holmes ' s relatively inexperienced troops made no progress against Porter at Turkey Bridge on Malvern Hill , even with the reinforcements from Magruder , and were repulsed by effective artillery fire and by Federal gunboats 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 ( 5 km ) radius . They assaulted the disjointed Union line of 40 , 000 men , arranged in a two - mile ( 3 km ) 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 . ( 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 . ) Three Confederate brigades made the assault , but Longstreet ordered them forward in a piecemeal fashion , over several hours . Brig . Gen . James L . 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 Brig . Gen . Cadmus M . Wilcox ' s Alabamans . The Confederate brigades met stiff resistance in sometimes hand - to - hand combat . On McCall ' s flanks , the divisions of Brig . Gen . Joseph Hooker ( to the south ) and Brig . Gens . Philip Kearny and Henry W . Slocum ( to the north ) , held against repeated Confederate attacks . Brig . Gen . John Sedgwick ' s division , which had units both in reserve and around 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 . 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 . Union casualties were 3 , 797 , Confederate about the same at 3 , 673 , but more than 40 % higher in killed and wounded . Although Jackson ' s wing of the army and Franklin ' s corps comprised tens of thousands of men , the action at White Oak Swamp included no infantry activity and was limited to primarily an artillery duel with few casualties . Malvern Hill . The final battle of the Seven Days was the first in which the Union Army occupied favorable ground . Malvern Hill offered good observation and artillery positions , having been prepared the previous day by Porter ' s V Corps . McClellan himself was not present on the battlefield , having preceded his army to Harrison ' s Landing on the James , and Porter was the most senior of the corps commanders . The slopes were cleared of timber , providing great visibility , and the open fields to the north could be swept by deadly fire from the 250 guns placed by Col . Henry J . Hunt , McClellan ' s chief of artillery . Beyond this space , the terrain was swampy and thickly wooded . Almost the entire Army of the Potomac occupied the hill and the line extended in a vast semicircle from Harrison ' s Landing on the extreme right to Brig . Gen . George W . Morell ' s division of Porter ' s corps on the extreme left , which occupied the geographically advantageous ground on the northwestern slopes of the hill . Rather than flanking the position , Lee attacked it directly , hoping that his artillery would clear the way for a successful infantry assault . His plan was to attack the hill from the north on the Quaker Road , using the divisions of Stonewall Jackson , Richard S . Ewell , D . H . Hill , and Brig . Gen . William H . C . Whiting . Magruder was ordered to follow Jackson and deploy to his right when he reached the battlefield . Huger ' s division was to follow as well , but Lee reserved the right to position him based on developments . The divisions of Longstreet and A . P . Hill , which had been the most heavily engaged in Glendale the previous day , were held in reserve . Once again , Lee ' s complex plan was poorly executed . The approaching soldiers were delayed by severely muddy roads and poor maps . Jackson arrived at the swampy creek called Western Run and stopped abruptly . Magruder ' s guides mistakenly sent him on the Long Bridge Road to the southwest , away from the battlefield . Eventually the battle line was assembled with Huger ' s division ( brigades of Brig . Gens . Ambrose R . Wright and Lewis A . Armistead ) on the Confederate right and D . H . Hill ' s division ( brigades of Brig . Gen . John Bell Hood and Col . Evander M . Law ) on the Quaker Road to the left . They awaited the Confederate bombardment before attacking . Unfortunately for Lee , Henry Hunt struck first , launching one of the greatest artillery barrages in the war from 1 p . m . to 2 : 30 p . m . The Union gunners had superior equipment and expertise and disabled most of the Confederate batteries . Despite the setback , Lee sent his infantry forward at 3 : 30 p . m . and Armistead ' s brigade made some progress through lines of Union sharpshooters . By 4 p . m . , Magruder arrived and he was ordered forward to support Armistead . His attack was piecemeal and poorly organized . Meanwhile , D . H . Hill launched his division forward along the Quaker Road , past Willis Church . Across the entire line of battle , the Confederate troops reached only within of the Union Center and were repulsed by nightfall with heavy losses . Lee ' s army suffered 5 , 355 casualties ( versus 3 , 214 Union ) in this wasted effort , but continued to follow the Union army all the way to Harrison ' s Landing . On Evelington Heights , part of the property of Edmund Ruffin , the Confederates had an opportunity to dominate the Union camps , making their position on the bank of the James potentially untenable ; although the Confederate position would be subjected to Union naval gunfire , the heights were an exceptionally strong defensive position that would have been very difficult for the Union to capture with infantry . Cavalry commander Jeb Stuart reached the heights and began bombardment with a single cannon . This alerted the Federals to the potential danger and they captured the heights before any Confederate infantry could reach the scene . Aftermath . The Seven Days Battles ended the Peninsula Campaign . The Army of the Potomac encamped around Berkeley Plantation , birthplace of William Henry Harrison . The Union defensive position was a strong one that Lee did not consider attacking , withdrawing instead to the defenses of Richmond . With its back to the James River , the army was protected by Union gunboats , but suffered heavily from heat , humidity , and disease . In August , they were withdrawn by order of President Lincoln to reinforce the Army of Virginia in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run . Both sides suffered heavy casualties . Lee ' s Army of Northern Virginia suffered about 20 , 000 casualties ( 3 , 494 killed , 15 , 758 wounded , and 952 captured or missing ) out of a total of over 90 , 000 soldiers during the Seven Days . McClellan reported casualties of about 16 , 000 ( 1 , 734 killed , 8 , 062 wounded , and 6 , 053 captured or missing ) out of a total of 105 , 445 . Despite their victory , many Confederates were stunned by the losses . The effects of the Seven Days Battles were widespread . After a successful start on the Peninsula that foretold an early end to the war , Northern morale was crushed by McClellan ' s retreat . Despite heavy casualties and clumsy tactical performances by Lee and his generals , Confederate morale skyrocketed , and Lee was emboldened to continue his aggressive strategy through Second Bull Run and the Maryland Campaign . McClellan ' s previous position as general - in - chief of all the Union armies , vacant since March , was filled on July 23 , 1862 , by Maj . Gen . Henry W . Halleck , although McClellan did retain command of the Army of the Potomac . Lee reacted to the performances of his subordinates by a reorganization of his army and by forcing the reassignment of Holmes and Magruder out of Virginia .