The Peninsula Campaign:
Mechanicsville to Westover

1862

The Union Army moved close to Richmond - close enough to hear the church bells, they said. But the capital of the Confederacy did not fall in 1862.

This 2001 field trip followed the events now known as the Seven Days Battles. We began our day at Beaver Dam Creek where the first of the Seven Days battles took place near Mechanicsville on June 26, 1862. Here Robert E. Lee, newly placed in command of the forces defending Richmond, attacked the Union right but suffered heavy losses.

At Gaines' Mill, Union troops were eventually overwhelmed by a massive Confederate assault. By the last of the Seven Days Battles (at Malvern Hill), the two sides had suffered some 35,000 casualties.