The Trent House

The Trent House. McClellan's Headquarters. , 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. confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, at 5,000 half their number, opposed them. Slowly but inevitably, the Federal juggernaut overcame three Southern defensive lines and was 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 at the end of June., Between June 12 and June 28, 1862, Union Gen. George B. McClellan maintained his headquarters here at the Trent House. Known as Reynoldsville, the house was constructed about 1825. Dr. Peterfield Trent, who served as a surgeon in a local Confederate defense regiment, lived here during the war., The house and surrounding fields became the nerve center for McClellan's Army of the Potomac. In 1862, the main road ran on the opposite side of the house, and McClellan pitched his headquarters tent under walnuts trees a few hundred yards away. There, he and his staff planned the final phases of the campaign to capture Richmond. Telegraph wires ran in all directions. A signal station stood nearby and intelligence-gathering aeronaut Thaddeus S. C. Lowe periodically ascended in an observation balloon from his commanding ridge., McClellan monitored the Battle of Gaines' Mill from here on June 27. Realizing that his plan for capturing Richmond had failed, he summoned his corps commanders for a council of war. At a roaring campfire that night, he announced that the army would abandon the lines in front of the city and withdraw south to a new base on the James River. The meeting, which disheartened his subordinates, lasted until almost 2 A.M. The headquarters moved to Savage's Station that morning, and then to the James River, leaving burned supplies behind here.,

"At the Trent Farm near by, were extensive bowers, ingeniously woven of cedar boughs, which had surrounded the headquarters where McClellan had recently resided, in a village of canvas. … Here also was his telegraph office." , - The Rev. Robert L. Dabney