Last updated: April 12, 2025
Place
Malvern Hill Battlefield
NPS
On this gently sloping rise, General Fitz John Porter was tasked, for the fourth and final time, with defending the rear of the Army of the Potomac as it reached its destination: Harrison’s Landing, ten miles downriver.
As he had done on June 26th, June 27th, and June 30th, General Porter surveyed the surroundings and prepared a defensive position to block the Confederate advance on July 1st.
55,000 soldiers of the Fifth Corps, supported by dozens of cannons, positioned themselves astride the roads leading south, blocking the way of the Confederate advance. To their left, the gentle slope of Malvern Hill gave way to a steep drop off, within sight of the river, where the U.S. Navy gunboats Jacob Bell, Galena, and Aroostook, could fire shells onto the field from two miles away.
General Lee’s plan to dislodge the federal defenders on Malvern Hill was to bring his own artillery to the field to silence the U.S. cannons that effectively commanded the slope. If Confederate batteries could deploy on the left and right, to destroy the U.S. guns in their crossfire, then 54,000 Confederate infantry soldiers stood a chance of success at charging across the field and overwhelming the defenders, as they had done four days before at Gaines’ Mill.
During the morning hours, Confederate infantry soldiers positioned themselves opposite the Malvern Hill defenders. From about 1 to 2:30 p.m., Confederate cannon arrived to their positions across the field a few at a time, and were easily knocked out in the exchange of fire with the already massed U.S. artillery.
Even though the first part of Lee’s plan had not succeeded, the second part - a general assault by the Confederate infantry - commenced at about 5:30 p.m. No explicit order had been given for a charge, but confusion and poorly written orders issued by Lee made the Confederate commanders believe an attack should be made.
Multiple waves of assault moved toward the U.S. defensive line and were repulsed in hours of sustained, bloody combat. When night fight fell, Porter’s Fifth Corps held their position. The successful repulse of the Confederate attack at Malvern Hill allowed McClellan to complete his withdrawal to Harrison’s Landing. Porter withdrew his men from Malvern Hill overnight and joined them.
After the conclusion of the Seven Days Battles, both sides claimed a degree of victory. For General Lee and the Confederates, an army that had been poised to begin a siege of their capital had been pushed back from nine miles outside the city to close to twenty-five miles distant, albeit at the cost of some 20,000 Confederates killed, wounded, and captured. General McClellan emphasized the perspective that his army had been repeatedly attacked while in motion, and that they had met the challenge by winning four of the five battles initiated against them while they were on the move. At the end of the Seven Days Battles, McClellan had moved his army exactly where he had intended to move them, repulsing multiple attacks, and neutralizing more than twenty percent of the Confederate attackers in the process.
The Seven Days Battles established the reputation of the relatively unknown Confederate commander, Robert E. Lee, as a bold, brash, and aggressive fighter. The compulsion to commit to large, decisive assaults that would replicate the success of the grand attack at Gaines’ Mill would propel Lee forward for the rest of 1862, and into 1863, with diminishing returns.
One of Lee’s subordinate generals of the Seven Days, D.H. Hill, said "The attacks on the Beaver Dam entrenchments, on the heights of Malvern Hill, at Gettysburg, were all grand, but of exactly the kind of grandeur the South could not afford."
The scope and the intensity of the Seven Days Battles convinced President Abraham Lincoln that the nature of the American Civil War had changed. After the fighting around Richmond concluded, Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation. He saved the document to be issued later, but the enduring legacy of the June and July fighting outside Richmond was the final factor that ensured that the Civil War would eventually be transformed into a war to end American slavery - it was only a question of when.
As he had done on June 26th, June 27th, and June 30th, General Porter surveyed the surroundings and prepared a defensive position to block the Confederate advance on July 1st.
55,000 soldiers of the Fifth Corps, supported by dozens of cannons, positioned themselves astride the roads leading south, blocking the way of the Confederate advance. To their left, the gentle slope of Malvern Hill gave way to a steep drop off, within sight of the river, where the U.S. Navy gunboats Jacob Bell, Galena, and Aroostook, could fire shells onto the field from two miles away.
General Lee’s plan to dislodge the federal defenders on Malvern Hill was to bring his own artillery to the field to silence the U.S. cannons that effectively commanded the slope. If Confederate batteries could deploy on the left and right, to destroy the U.S. guns in their crossfire, then 54,000 Confederate infantry soldiers stood a chance of success at charging across the field and overwhelming the defenders, as they had done four days before at Gaines’ Mill.
During the morning hours, Confederate infantry soldiers positioned themselves opposite the Malvern Hill defenders. From about 1 to 2:30 p.m., Confederate cannon arrived to their positions across the field a few at a time, and were easily knocked out in the exchange of fire with the already massed U.S. artillery.
Even though the first part of Lee’s plan had not succeeded, the second part - a general assault by the Confederate infantry - commenced at about 5:30 p.m. No explicit order had been given for a charge, but confusion and poorly written orders issued by Lee made the Confederate commanders believe an attack should be made.
Multiple waves of assault moved toward the U.S. defensive line and were repulsed in hours of sustained, bloody combat. When night fight fell, Porter’s Fifth Corps held their position. The successful repulse of the Confederate attack at Malvern Hill allowed McClellan to complete his withdrawal to Harrison’s Landing. Porter withdrew his men from Malvern Hill overnight and joined them.
After the conclusion of the Seven Days Battles, both sides claimed a degree of victory. For General Lee and the Confederates, an army that had been poised to begin a siege of their capital had been pushed back from nine miles outside the city to close to twenty-five miles distant, albeit at the cost of some 20,000 Confederates killed, wounded, and captured. General McClellan emphasized the perspective that his army had been repeatedly attacked while in motion, and that they had met the challenge by winning four of the five battles initiated against them while they were on the move. At the end of the Seven Days Battles, McClellan had moved his army exactly where he had intended to move them, repulsing multiple attacks, and neutralizing more than twenty percent of the Confederate attackers in the process.
The Seven Days Battles established the reputation of the relatively unknown Confederate commander, Robert E. Lee, as a bold, brash, and aggressive fighter. The compulsion to commit to large, decisive assaults that would replicate the success of the grand attack at Gaines’ Mill would propel Lee forward for the rest of 1862, and into 1863, with diminishing returns.
One of Lee’s subordinate generals of the Seven Days, D.H. Hill, said "The attacks on the Beaver Dam entrenchments, on the heights of Malvern Hill, at Gettysburg, were all grand, but of exactly the kind of grandeur the South could not afford."
The scope and the intensity of the Seven Days Battles convinced President Abraham Lincoln that the nature of the American Civil War had changed. After the fighting around Richmond concluded, Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation. He saved the document to be issued later, but the enduring legacy of the June and July fighting outside Richmond was the final factor that ensured that the Civil War would eventually be transformed into a war to end American slavery - it was only a question of when.