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5 - The Peninsula Campaign

from Part I - Major Battles and Campaigns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2019

By
Glenn D. Brasher
Edited by
Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
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Summary

In spring 1862, Major General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac floated down the Chesapeake Bay, landed at Fort Monroe, and marched up the Virginia Peninsula toward the Confederate capital. This campaign was the largest amphibious operation of the war and saw perhaps Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s best chance to destroy an entire Union army. Arriving outside Richmond, Federal troops enjoyed superior numbers, yet during a week of almost continuous fighting Lee used aggressive attacks to drive McClellan away. No Union army would get as close to Richmond for two more bloody years, and Southerners discovered the leader whose subsequent victories helped build and sustain Confederate nationalism. Most important, the campaign led to using emancipation as a means of saving the Union.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the American Civil War , pp. 72 - 94
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Key Works

Allan, William. The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1899).Google Scholar
Brasher, Glenn David. The Peninsula Campaign & the Necessity of Emancipation (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012).Google Scholar
Burton, Brian K. Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Coski, John M. The Army of the Potomac at Berkeley Plantation: The Harrison’s Landing Occupation of 1862 (Richmond, VA: J. M. Coski, 1989).Google Scholar
Cullen, Joseph P. The Peninsula Campaign, 1862: McClellan and Lee Struggle for Richmond (New York: Bonanza Books, 1973).Google Scholar
Dougherty, Kevin and Michael Moore, J.. The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: A Military Analysis (Oxford, MS: The University Press of Mississippi, 2005).Google Scholar
Dowdey, Clifford. The Seven Days: The Emergence of Lee (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964).Google Scholar
Dubbs, Carol Kettenburg. Defend This Old Town: Williamsburg during the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Gallagher, Gary W. (ed.). The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula & the Seven Days (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Miller, William J. (ed.). The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: Yorktown to the Seven Days, 3 vols.(Campbell, CA: Savas Publishing Company, 1997).Google Scholar
Quarstein, John V. The Civil War on the Virginia Peninsula (Dover, NH: Arcadia, 1997).Google Scholar
Rafuse, Ethan S. McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Sears, Stephen. To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1992; Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1996).Google Scholar

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