Seven Pines Bloodbath: Johnston Falls, Lee Takes Command

Confederate General Joseph Johnston rode to the front at Seven Pines and was shot off his horse, and the command decision that followed changed the course of the Civil War. On May 31, 1862, Johnston attacked the Union Army of the Potomac east of Richmond in a battle that produced 11,000 casualties, accomplished almost nothing tactically, and created the opening for Robert E. Lee to take charge of the most famous army in American military history. Union General George McClellan had brought over 100,000 troops up the Virginia Peninsula to within six miles of the Confederate capital. Richmond was in a panic. Johnston, commanding the Confederate defenses, planned a complicated attack on the two Union corps isolated south of the rain-swollen Chickahominy River. The plan required precise coordination among multiple divisions. Almost nothing went right. Generals arrived late, took wrong roads, and attacked piecemeal instead of in concert. Longstreet's division ended up on the wrong road entirely, delaying the assault for hours. When the fighting finally began on the afternoon of May 31, it was fierce but chaotic. Union forces at Fair Oaks Station and the nearby crossroads of Seven Pines were pushed back but held their ground by evening. Johnston was wounded twice while observing the fighting: first by a bullet in the shoulder, then by a shell fragment in the chest. He was carried from the field, and Jefferson Davis, watching the battle from nearby, appointed Robert E. Lee to replace him on June 1, 1862. Lee's appointment was received poorly. His only previous field command had been a failed campaign in western Virginia. Richmond newspapers called him "Granny Lee" for his cautious reputation. Within three weeks, Lee launched the Seven Days Battles, drove McClellan away from Richmond, and began the aggressive campaign that made him the Confederacy's greatest general. Seven Pines was a muddled, indecisive battle. Its only lasting consequence was putting the right Confederate general in command at exactly the moment the war demanded boldness.