Glendale

Background

The Seven Days Battles opened on June 25, 1862, when Union forces struck first at the small engagement known as Oak Grove, yet the momentum shifted almost immediately as Lee launched a string of offensives: Beaver Dam Creek, also called Mechanicsville, on the 26th, then Gaines' Mill on the 27th, followed by the smaller clashes at Garnett's and Golding's Farm spanning June 27 and 28, and finally a strike against the retreating Union rear guard at Savage's Station on the 29th. Throughout this stretch, McClellan's Army of the Potomac kept falling back, seeking refuge at Harrison's Landing along the James River.

Once Gaines' Mill had concluded, McClellan failed to issue clear directions for how his forces should withdraw, nor did he designate anyone to serve as second-in-command. Brigadier General Fitz John Porter took most of the V Corps, excluding its Third Division, toward Malvern Hill, leaving the other four corps to manage their own fighting retreat with little coordination between them. By midday on June 30, the majority of the army had gotten across White Oak Swamp Creek. Roughly a third of the force had already reached the James, while the rest remained strung out between White Oak Swamp and Glendale, a modest crossroads settlement where the Charles City Road met the New Market (or Long Bridge) Road and the Quaker Road, sometimes called Willis Church Road, which ran over Malvern Hill down to the river. That morning, after riding along the columns to observe their progress, McClellan headed south himself and boarded the ironclad USS Galena on the James.

As the army moved out of White Oak Swamp along the Long Bridge and New Market Road heading west, it was forced to pivot sharply south near the Glendale intersection to continue toward the James, making that junction a point of critical vulnerability that Union commanders could not afford to lose. To guard the retreating columns, McClellan's corps leaders arranged their divisions in a north to south line

Battle

On June 30, Lee's plan for a coordinated strike against the entire flank of the traveling Union Army of the Potomac collapsed under poor execution, a pattern that plagued much of the Seven Days fighting as his subordinates struggled to synchronize their movements in the field.

Approaching from the northwest, Major General Benjamin Huger found his path along the Charles City Road choked with felled timber, placed there by pioneers from Brigadier General Henry W. Slocum's division. Instead of clearing the debris, Huger spent hours hacking a fresh road through dense forest, an episode later remembered as the "Battle of the Axes." He never sought an alternate route, and worried about a possible counterstrike, he ultimately took no part in the day's combat.

Farther south, Major General Theophilus Holmes led green troops from his Department of North Carolina command, now part of the Army of Northern Virginia, against Porter's positions at Turkey Bridge and Malvern Hill. They gained no ground, driven back by Federal artillery and by the gunboats Galena and Aroostook stationed on the James.

By four in the afternoon, Lee had redirected Major General John B. Magruder twice: first to join Holmes along the River Road for an attack on Malvern Hill against the Union left, and then to reinforce Longstreet at the center instead. The result was that Magruder's division spent most of the day marching back and forth without engaging.

Major General Thomas Jackson, coming from the northeast, moved with notable sluggishness, remaining north of White Oak Creek for the entire day. His efforts to cross and strike Franklin's VI Corps in what became the Battle of White Oak Swamp were half-hearted at best, and he settled instead for an inconclusive artillery exchange meant to buy time for rebuilding a destroyed bridge, even though usable fords lay close by. Despite his remarkable success weeks earlier in the Valley Campaign, whether from fatigue or misjudgment, Jackson's performance throughout the Seven Days was marked by hesitation and delay. Still, his mere presence prompted Brigadier General John Sedgwick to shift two of his three brigades northward away from the Charles City Road to bolster the Union line at the creek.

Meanwhile, near Glendale, Union forces also struggled with their opening moves. On the night of June 29, Brigadier General George A. McCall's Third Division of the V Corps received orders to establish a defensive line ahead of the Glendale crossroads, meant to block any Confederate advance in that direction. Traveling after dark over poor roads, McCall's brigades lost their bearings and passed beyond the intersection, not realizing their error until the early hours of June 30. Doubling back, the division reached the area near daybreak and paused there, awaiting fresh instructions before rejoining Porter. It was only when the gap left by Sedgwick's departure became apparent, and McCall and his brigade commanders discovered to their alarm that nothing separated them from the approaching Confederate divisions of Longstreet and Hill advancing from Richmond, that McCall's three brigades moved to close the breach.

Around two o'clock, as Longstreet and A.P. Hill listened for signs that Huger had begun his assault, Longstreet mistook the sound of unrelated cannon fire in the distance for the agreed signal. He unleashed his artillery on McCall's line, prompting a swift response from McCall's own guns. Not far away, Lee, Longstreet, and the visiting Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, sat on horseback discussing strategy when heavy artillery fire, likely blind shots from McCall's Pennsylvania batteries firing Parrott rifles, struck near them, wounding two men and killing three horses. Hill, who commanded that portion of the line, immediately sent the president and the senior officers back out of danger. Longstreet then instructed Colonel Micah Jenkins to quiet the offending Union battery, an order he would later insist meant deploying sharpshooters against the gun crews. Jenkins, however, interpreted it as a call to charge, sending his brigade across open ground directly at the guns. This spurred Longstreet's remaining br