Battle of Williamsburg

Battle of Williamsburg. Redoubt 2. , (Preface) In April 1862, Union forces under Gen. George B. McClellan began a major campaign to capture Richmond, marching west from Fort Monroe up the Peninsula between the York and James Rivers toward the Confederate capital. A Confederate army half their size opposed them. Slowly but inevitably, the Federal juggernaut overcame three Southern defensive lines and soon camped in Richmond’s eastern suburbs. New commander Robert E. Lee, however, led a Confederate offensive that drove the Union army away during the Seven Days’ Battles, June 25-July 1. Williamsburg remained under Federal martial law for the duration of the war., At first light on May 5, 1862, Union Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker attacked the Confederate line, moving across your front from right to left toward Fort Magruder. A cold drizzle fell, and rain mixed with smoke from the Confederate guns blew into the attackers' faces. The terrain they had to cross consisted of plowed fields and woods that in many places were "so dense that a colonel could not see his entire regiment when in line of battle.", Union skirmishers appeared out of the mist in front of Confederate Gen. Richard H. Anderson's guns in Fort Magruder and nearby redoubts. The Federals twice drove back Anderson's skirmishers deployed in front of the redoubts, but the Confederates counterattacked. By 11 A.M., Anderson's men, reinforced by brigades under Gens. Cadmus M. Wilcox, A.P. Hill, and George E. Pickett, pushed the Union left flank back. A soldier of the 19th Mississippi Infantry reached the Union cannons, jumped on one of them, and waved his regimental flag to signal the guns in Fort Magruder to cease firing., The muddy roads delayed the reinforcements trying to reach Hooker. Union Gen. Philip Kearny, a charismatic one-armed officer, urged them on shouting "I am a one-armed Jersey son-of-a-gun, follow me!" One of Hooker's men wrote of the reinforcements' arrival, "At their head was Gen. Kearny flourishing a sword in his only arm. Never was our eyes more gladdened at this sight." Together, Kearny and Hooker pushed the Confederates back into their redoubts., (Photo Captions), Kearny at Williamsburg - Courtesy Library of Congress, Gen. Joseph Hooker , Courtesy Library of Congress, Gen. Richard H. Anderson , Courtesy Library of Congress