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.
Following the Battle of Gaines' Mill, Union Major General George B. McClellan ordered his Army of the Potomac to withdraw from its positions along the Chickahominy River and redeploy to a new base along the James River, under the protective fire of Union gunboats.
After the enemy disappeared in his front, Confederate General Robert E. Lee reasoned that McClellan was most likely retreating toward the James River and devised a plan to catch the Army of the Potomac in transit and destroy it. Gambling that the Federal force would be slowed and spread out while traversing the boggy White Oak Swamp, Lee ordered his divisions of the Army of Northern Virginia, under the field command of Major Generals Benjamin Huger, James Longstreet, and A.P. Hill, to move up quickly and simultaneously converge upon the Federal troops and supply train where they would likely emerge from the swamp and turn southward toward Malvern Hill, bisecting the front and rear of the column in the vicinity of White Oak Swamp Bridge and Glendale (or Frayser's Farm), respectively, and attempting to execute a double envelopment in the fashion of the Battle of Cannae to destroy McClellan in detail.
The coordinated assault envisioned by Lee failed to materialize due to difficulties encountered by Huger and lackluster efforts made by Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, but successful attacks made by Longstreet and Hill near the Glendale crossroad penetrated the Union defenses near Willis Church and temporarily breached the line. Union counterattacks sealed the breach and turned the Confederates back, repulsing their attack upon the line of retreat along the Willis Church/Quaker Road through brutal close-quarters hand-to-hand fighting. North of Glendale, Huger's advance was stopped on the Charles City Road. Near the White Oak Swamp Bridge, the divisions led by Jackson were simultaneously delayed by Union Brigadier General William B. Franklin's corps at White Oak Swamp. South of Glendale near Malvern Hill, Confederate Major General Theophilus H. Holmes made a feeble attempt to attack the Union left flank at Turkey Bridge but was driven back.
The battle was Lee's best chance to cut off the Union Army from the safety of the James River, and his efforts to bisect the Federal line failed. The Army of the Potomac successfully retreated to the James, and that night, the Union army established a strong position on Malvern Hill.
Background
Military situation
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' 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' Mill, McClellan left his army with no clear instructions regarding routes of withdrawal and without naming a second-in-command. The bulk of the V Corps (less the Third Division), under Brigadier General 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, New Market/Long Bridge, and Quaker [or Willis Church] Roads, 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 River.
Leaving the White Oak Swamp and traveling westward on the Long Bridge/New Market Road, the units of the Army of the Potomac made a 90-degree southward turn near the Glendale crossroad toward the James River, and this vulnerable junction was therefore a target of primary defensive importance. To protect the Army of the Potomac in transit, McClellan's corps commanders deployed divisions north-south in a defensive position along the Quaker Road and Charles City Road to protect against an eastward thrust by Lee's Army of North Virginia until the Army of the Potomac had arrived safely at Malvern Hill.
Lee ordered his Army of Northern Virginia to converge upon 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. 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 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest, splitting it in two. Huger's division was to 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 7 miles (11 km) to the west, in a mass attack. Holmes was ordered to cannonade retreating Federals near Malvern Hill.
Battle
Lee's intended simultaneous thrust against the entire flank of the Union Army of the Potomac in transit failed to materialize on June 30; as with many of the Seven Days Battles, Lee's elaborate grand strategy was poorly executed by his commanders, who were unable to coordinate the intricate details in the field.
From the northwest, Major General Benjamin Huger was slowed by felled trees obstructing the Charles City Road, the result of the efforts made by pioneers from Brigadier General Henry W. Slocum's division to halt his advance. Rather than clearing the path, Huger had his men spend hours cutting 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.
To the south, Major General Theophilus 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.
By 4 p.m., Lee ordered Major General John B. Magruder's command first to join Holmes on the River Road and attack Malvern Hill to the south, on the left flank of the Union line, then later ordered him to assist Longstreet at the center; as a result, Magruder's division spent much of the day countermarching.
Major General Thomas Jackson approached slowly from the northeast and spent the entire day north of the White Oak Creek, making only indifferent efforts to cross and attack Franklin's VI Corps in the Battle of White Oak Swamp, then attempting to force the Federals back in a fruitless artillery duel in order that a destroyed bridge could be rebuilt for crossing his army, despite the presence of adequate fords nearby. (In spite of his stunning victories in the recent Valley Campaign, or possibly due to battle fatigue from that campaign, Jackson's contributions in the Seven Days Battles were marred by slow execution and poor judgment throughout.) Jackson's presence did, however, cause Brigadier General John Sedgwick to move two of his three brigades north from the Charles City Road to reinforce the Federal position at the creek.
At the same time, the Union Army near Glendale also faltered in its initial deployment; on the evening of June 29, the Third Division of the V Corps, under command of Brigadier General George A. McCall, was ordered to take up a defensive position ahead of the Glendale intersection to head-off any Confederate thrust made in that direction. Moving slowly after dark on inadequate roads, the brigades of McCall's division became lost and overshot the crossroad, only realizing they had missed their objective sometime in the early morning hours of June 30. Backtracking toward Glendale, the division arrived near dawn, where it halted on its march to rejoin Porter, awaiting new orders. The gap in the Union line created by Sedgwick was noticed and plugged by McCall's three brigades after McCall and his brigadiers soon realized, to their genuine surprise, that nothing stood between them and the advancing divisions of Longstreet and Hill coming from the direction of Richmond.
At 2 p.m., while Longstreet and A.P. Hill waited for the sounds of Huger's expected opening assault, Longstreet interpreted distant unidentified cannon fire as the signal to begin the coordinated attack. He opened upon McCall's line with his artillery, and McCall's artillery soon returned counter-battery fire. Nearby, Lee, Longstreet, and visiting Confederate President Jefferson Davis were conferring on horseback when they came under heavy artillery fire (presumably blind fire from the Parrott rifles of McCall's Pennsylvania Artillery units), wounding two men and killing three horses. Hill, commanding in that sector, ordered the president and senior generals to the rear. Longstreet ordered Colonel Micah Jenkins to "silence" the Federal battery—an order he would later state he intended to mean the engagement of the cannoneers by sharpshooters, but which instead resulted in the overeager Jenkins ordering his brigade to charge the guns across the open field. This action was soon followed by Longstreet's other brigades mobilizing along the line, which brought about a general fight around 4 p.m.
Although belated and not initiated in the coordinated fashion as Lee planned, the combined assaults by the divisions of A. P. Hill and Longstreet (under Longstreet's overall command) would be the only units to follow Lee's order to attack the main Union concentration. Longstreet's 20,000 men were not joined by the Confederate divisions of Huger or Jackson, despite their concentration within a 3-mile (4.8 km) radius. Longstreet's troops assaulted the disjointed Union line of 40,000 men, arranged in a 2-mile (3.2 km) arc north and south of the Glendale intersection, but the brunt of the fighting centered on the position held by McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves division (Third Division of the V Corps), 6,000 men just west of Frayser's Farm and north of Willis Church. (Though the farm was now owned by R. H. Nelson, many locals still called it Frayser's Farm.) McCall's division consisted of three brigades: Brigadier General George G. Meade's Second Brigade deployed on the right, Brigadier General Truman Seymour's Third Brigade deployed on the left, with the First Brigade of Brigadier General John F. Reynolds (presently commanded by Colonel Seneca G. Simmons following Reynolds's capture at Boatswain's Swamp after Gaines' Mill) held in reserve to the rear of center. Also attached to McCall's division of Pennsylvanian volunteer infantry regiments and two batteries of the 1st Pennsylvania Artillery were three batteries of artillery from the Colonel Henry Hunt's Artillery Reserve of the Army of the Potomac: Captain Otto Diederich's Battery A, 1st Battalion, New York Light Artillery, Captain John Knieriem's Battery C, 1st Battalion, New York Light Artillery, and a Regular Army company, Lieutenant Alanson M. Randol's Battery E & G, 1st U.S. Artillery, replacing Captain Henry De Hart's Battery C, 5th U.S. Artillery, usually attached to the division, which had been overrun and lost three of its guns at Gaines' Mill.
Incidentally, of all the units of the Army of the Potomac present on the Peninsula, McClellan and his corps commanders had tasked the critical defense of this Glendale crossroad to units of the V Corps, the only corps heavily engaged north of the Chickahominy at Gaines' Mill; in particular, to McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves, which had been disproportionately engaged and suffered approximately 2,000 casualties during the fighting at Beaver Dam Creek and Gaines' Mill, consequently entering the fighting at Glendale in a greatly diminished capacity. One historian of the Pennsylvania Reserves wrote of the division at Glendale, "Most of the men were fitter subjects for the hospital than for the battle-field."
Three Confederate brigades were sent forward in the assault, from north to south: Brigadier General Cadmus M. Wilcox, Colonel Micah Jenkins (Anderson's Brigade), and Brigadier General James L. Kemper. Longstreet ordered them forward in a piecemeal fashion over several hours, and they were greatly hindered additionally by the difficulty of the terrain and overgrown forest. The 14th Alabama Infantry was one of the first units to advance and bore the brunt of the Union fire, after which they were "nearly annihilated". The 14th Louisiana also suffered many casualties and would thereafter refer to the battle as "the Slaughterhouse." 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, Kemper's brigade conducted a disorderly but enthusiastic assault on the Whitlock Farm, which carried them through Seymour's two 1st New York Parrott rifle batteries on McCall's extreme left flank. This sudden disturbance caused McCall to deploy his reserve brigade under Simmons from the center to the left to answer the charge, leaving his right flank weakened and vulnerable. (Colonel Simmons, commanding the countercharge, was mortally wounded while driving Kemper back into the woods) Soon thereafter, the Confederates emerged opposite Meade's brigade and proceeded to break through the main line with Jenkins' support near the right center, followed up within a few hours by Wilcox's brigade of Alabamians in the center and right.