Chickahominy Bluff

Chickahominy Bluff. Richmond Battlefield. On this ridge overlooking the Chickahominy River, General Lee, President Davis, and many other prominent Confederate officers gathered to await the start of the operations that came to be called the Seven Days Campaign. They expected “Stonewall” Jackson’s 20,000-man army to get behind the Union position near Mechanicsville, to force the Federal Fifth Corps out of its defenses. General A. P. Hill then would clear the river crossings, allowing the bulk of Lee’s army to unite with Jackson and threaten the Richmond and York River Railroad, then in use as the main Union supply line., Unanticipated obstacles delayed Jackson, and late on the afternoon of June 26, 1862, Hill forced a crossing two miles upriver from here and captured Mechanicsville. Hill’s success allowed Lee to transfer the troops assembled here at Chickahominy Bluff over to the northern bank of the river. Shortly before sunset, fragments of the Confederate army launched attacks just east of Mechanicsville at the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek, two miles from here., Touring the Battlefields , This is the first stop on an extensive driving tour that mirrors the movements of the armies in the Seven Days Campaign. From here, you can drive across the Chickahominy River at the same spot where Lee and his divisions marched over late in the afternoon of June 26. Passing the little town of Mechanicsville, you will come to Beaver Dam Creek, followed by the rest of the Seven Days battlefields. Most of the driving tour is on historic roads and follows the routes used by the contending armies in one of the most elaborate and complex campaigns of the Civil War., Right Panel: Chickahominy Bluff , ”No one had any theory about the delay of Jackson, which was a cause of great anxiety…. Suddenly the lookers on … began looking with interest, and then Genl. Lee himself … joined then… [He] continued his observation for a few minutes, and then descended to the road. Advancing to Genl. Longstreet, he said ‘Those are [A.P.] Hill’s men, and then, in as quiet a tone as if he spoke of the weather, he said, ‘General, you may now cross over.’” - Major Joseph Brent, CSA Magruder’s staff