The Battle of Garnett's and Golding's Farms took place June 27–28, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia, as part of the Seven Days Battles of the American Civil War's Peninsula Campaign. While the battle at Gaines's Mill raged north of the Chickahominy River, the forces of Confederate general John B. Magruder conducted a reconnaissance in force that developed into a minor attack against the Union line south of the river at Garnett's Farm. The Confederates attacked again near Golding's Farm on the morning of June 28 but in both cases were easily repulsed. The action at the Garnett and Golding farms accomplished little beyond convincing McClellan that he was being attacked from both sides of the Chickahominy.
Richmond, Virginia, as the center of the Southern rebellion, was a city of obvious strategic importance to both sides of the American Civil War. In this context, General George McClellan and his Army of the Potomac began a campaign on the Virginia Peninsula to take the city. His early attempts were successful. In fact, on nearly every front, the Northerners had an advantage over the Confederates. By the end of May 1862 however, McClellan's army was split in half along the banks of the Chickahominy River, with one wing, encompassing two Union corps, to the south river, and the other wing, with some three Federal corps, to the north. On May 31, Joseph E. Johnston, the general-in-chief of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, sought to capitalize on the bifurcation and led three columns of soldiers towards the Union position at the south of the river. The resulting conflict, called the Battle of Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks), was inconclusive. Johnston's plan fell apart, and the Army of the Potomac lost no ground. Johnston himself was wounded however, and the next day, June 1, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, appointed his military adviser, General Robert E. Lee, to lead the Confederate armies. There was a lull in the fighting on the Peninsula in subsequent weeks, ending in a Union offensive at Oak Grove on June 25. Lee's men managed to halt the attacking Federals, and the next day, the Confederates went on the offensive in the Battle of Mechanicsville (or Beaver Dam Creek). The battle ended in a Confederate repulse and heavy Southern casualties. Nevertheless, the victorious Federals, under General McClellan's orders, retreated to Boatswain's Swamp at the south Chickahominy and established a formidable battle line. There, on June 27, the Confederate armies launched an attack at Gaines's Mill, which would become one of the bloodiest battles of the Peninsula Campaign. While the conflict at Gaines's Mill raged, another conflict was brewing near two farms to the south, which would turn into the Battle of Garnett's and Golding's Farms.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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