Williamsburg was a Civil War engagement fought in Virginia, 1862. The outcome was inconclusive.
In the first pitched battle of the Peninsula Campaign, nearly 41,000 Federals and 32,000 Confederates were engaged. Following up the Confederate retreat from Yorktown, Hooker's division encountered the Confederate rearguard near Williamsburg. Hooker assaulted Fort Magruder, an earthen fortification alongside the Williamsburg Road, but was repulsed. Confederate counterattacks, directed by Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, threatened to overwhelm the Union left flank, until Kearny's division arrived to stabilize the Federal position. Hancock's brigade then moved to threaten the Confederate left flank, occupying two abandoned redoubts. The Confederates counterattacked unsuccessfully. Hancock's localized success was not exploited. The Confederate army continued its withdrawal during the night.
On May 5, 1862, opposing armies clashed near Williamsburg, Virginia, spilling across York County and James City County as well, in what became known as either the Battle of Williamsburg or the Battle of Fort Magruder. This engagement marked the opening pitched fight of the Peninsula Campaign during the Civil War, drawing roughly 41,000 Federal troops against about 32,000 Confederates. When the smoke cleared, neither side had secured a decisive victory, though Confederate forces resumed their retreat afterward.
The clash grew out of the Confederate withdrawal from Yorktown. As Brig. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Union division pursued the retreating enemy, his men ran into a Confederate rearguard stationed close to Williamsburg. Hooker pressed forward against Fort Magruder, an earthwork positioned along the Williamsburg Road, only to be driven back. Maj. Gen. James Longstreet then organized Confederate counterattacks that came close to collapsing the Union left, a crisis averted only when Brig. Gen. Philip Kearny brought his division into position to steady the Federal line. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock led his brigade toward the opposite side of the field, seizing two redoubts the Confederates had abandoned and putting pressure on their left flank. A Confederate attempt to dislodge him failed, yet Union commanders never capitalized on the advantage Hancock had gained there. Under cover of darkness, the Confederate army pulled back once more, heading toward Richmond, Virginia.
When Confederate commander Joseph E. Johnston pulled his troops off the Warwick Line at the Siege of Yorktown under cover of darkness on the night of May 3, the move caught Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan flat-footed, leaving him with no ready plan to give chase. The following day, McClellan directed his cavalry chief, Brig. Gen. George Stoneman, to press after Johnston's rearguard, while roughly half the Army of the Potomac trailed behind under Brig. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner. McClellan additionally instructed Brig. Gen. William B. Franklin to load his division onto transport vessels on the York River, hoping to ferry them upriver and land troops in a position to sever Johnston's escape route. Loading the men and their gear onto the ships, though, consumed two full days, so this plan came too late to influence the fighting on May 5. Franklin's men would eventually go ashore and see action at the Battle of Eltham's Landing on May 7.
Meanwhile, Johnston's column crept forward through thick mud on May 5, its progress slow, and Stoneman's horsemen traded fire along the way with the cavalry of Brig. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who was screening Johnston's withdrawal. Needing to buy time for the rest of his army to escape cleanly, Johnston peeled off a portion of his command to hold ground at Fort Magruder, a sizable earthwork straddling the Williamsburg Road out of Yorktown that Brig. Gen. John B. Magruder had built earlier in the campaign.
Newspapers loyal to the Union cause presented the engagement as a clear triumph for Federal arms. McClellan went so far as to call it a "brilliant victory" achieved against a larger enemy force. Southerners, though, understood the stand at Williamsburg differently, viewing it chiefly as a delaying action that bought time for the main body of Confederate forces to continue falling back toward Richmond. When the cavalry clashes of May 4 are factored in, Confederate losses totaled 1,682 men. On the Union side, the toll reached 2,283.
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