Eltham's Landing

On May 7, 1862, fighting broke out in New Kent County, Virginia, in an engagement that history remembers under three names: Eltham's Landing, Barhamsville, and West Point. The clash formed part of the Peninsula Campaign during the American Civil War. Union forces under Brig. Gen. William B. Franklin came ashore at Eltham's Landing, prompting a response from two brigades under Brig. Gen. G. W. Smith, who moved to guard the Confederate army's supply trains along the Barhamsville Road. At the time Franklin's division came ashore, Confederate troops were pulling back from their position along the Williamsburg line, and despite his landing, Franklin proved unable to disrupt that withdrawal.

Battle

Protecting the route to Barhamsville fell to the division under Brig. Gen. William H. C. Whiting, a task Johnston assigned through Maj. Gen. G. W. Smith, with Colonel Wade Hampton's Legion joining the effort. Franklin, for his part, positioned Brig. Gen. John Newton's brigade among the trees flanking the landing road on May 7, backing them up with elements from the brigades of Brig. Gens. Henry W. Slocum and Philip Kearny stationed behind.

When Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood's Texas Brigade pushed forward with Hampton covering the right flank, Newton's forward skirmishers fell back under the pressure. Worried that his men might shoot one another amid the dense timber, Hood had ordered rifles carried unloaded during the advance. This decision nearly cost him his life when a Union picket line appeared just fifteen paces away. Hood later described the moment: a Federal corporal leveled his musket directly at him while he stood before his own troops. Luck intervened in the form of Private John Deal of the 4th Texas Infantry, who had quietly ignored the order to keep his weapon unloaded. Deal's shot dropped the corporal before the man could fire on Hood.

With a second brigade advancing behind Hood's left, the Federal defenders abandoned the tree line altogether, falling back across open ground toward the landing where Union gunboats could shield them with covering fire. Whiting attempted to answer the gunboats with his own artillery, but the guns lacked the range needed to do damage, forcing him to break off the engagement around two in the afternoon. Once the Confederates withdrew, Union forces reoccupied the woods, though they made no further push forward that day.

Aftermath

Casualties from the fighting at Eltham's Landing were modest given how the engagement is remembered, amounting to 194 losses on the Union side and 48 among the Confederates, a toll fitting for what amounted to little more than a stiff skirmish. Franklin himself downplayed the encounter's significance while still claiming a measure of success, writing to McClellan that he congratulated himself on having held his ground. Yet despite this satisfaction, the clash settled nothing tactically, and Franklin let slip a chance to cut off the Confederates as they withdrew from Williamsburg, letting the retreating force move on without interference.

Johnston, for his part, found reason to be satisfied with how things had gone. His troops had carried out his instructions to test the enemy carefully before pulling back, and their performance amused him enough that he put a teasing question to General Hood, wondering aloud what his Texans might have accomplished had he instead commanded them to press forward and push the enemy back. Hood's answer matched the humor of the moment: he guessed they would have driven the Federals straight into the river and left them trying to swim out and seize the gunboats themselves.