The Peninsula Campaign: The History and Legacy of the Union’s Failed Attempt to Capture Richmond in 1862

As Union commander George McClellan moved the Army of the Potomac up the Peninsula in early 1862, the Union army still had a nearly 2-1 advantage in manpower, so Army of Northern Virginia commander Joseph E. Johnston continued to gradually pull his troops back to a line of defense nearer Richmond as McClellan advanced. In conjunction, the Union Navy began moving its operations further up the James River, until it could get within 7 miles of the Confederate capital before being opposed by a Southern fort. McClellan continued to attempt to turn Johnston’s flank, until the two armies were facing each other along the Chickahominy River. At this point, the Union army was close enough to Richmond that they could see the city’s church steeples, but they would come no closer. By the end of May, Stonewall Jackson had startlingly defeated three separate Northern armies in the Shenandoah Valley, inducing Lincoln to hold back the I Corps from McClellan. When McClellan was forced to extend his line north to link up with troops that he expected to be sent overland to him, Johnston learned that McClellan was moving along the Chickahominy River. 

The fate of the Confederacy would hang in the balance that summer, and in addition to having a direct impact on the rest of the fighting in 1862, the Peninsula Campaign would remain in the minds of Union soldiers and leaders over the next few years. Lincoln’s frustrations with different generals in the Army of the Potomac led to his promotion of Ulysses S. Grant as chief of all armies ahead of the Overland Campaign of 1864. When the Army of the Potomac was thwarted at the Battle of the Wilderness in early May 1864, it found itself in a similar position as Hooker at Chancellorsville, McClellan on the Peninsula, and Burnside after Fredericksburg. Union soldiers got the familiar dreadful feeling that they would retreat back toward Washington, as they had too many times before. This time, however, Grant kept moving south.