Two Bad Maps in the Peninsula Campaign

   It is sometimes easy for us to sit back and relish in the campaign maps that we have available at our fingertips. I have a large notebook full of maps from the American Battlefield Trust, and on my shelves are books with maps of campaigns like Antietam and Gettysburg. (Savas Beattie is producing some fine map volumes these days.) But for commanders during the war, this was not often true. Two faulty maps during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862 changed the course of battle.

   Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan commanded the Federal Army of the Potomac. Appointed commander following the disastrous route at First Manassas, McClellan built a fine army – over 100,000 men, well armed, well equipped. After his first plan of circumnavigating the Confederate entrenchments near Manassas by taking a route down the Chesapeake River to Urbanna fell apart due to the repositioning of Confederate forces, McClellan chose to land his army at Fortress Monroe and move quickly up the Peninsula and capture Richmond. The first part of his plan worked well, for a day. Then he quickly discovered that the map he was studying was incorrect. McClellan believed that the Warwick River paralleled the James River. McClellan had even considered moving gunboats into the Warwick River to protect his left flank as he advance toward Richmond. Instead, the Warwick River flowed more across the Peninsula, and, the Confederates had built extensive works behind the river. Plus, the foliage on the Confederate side blocked the view of McClellan’s scouts, and he had no idea just how many Confederates were on the other side. McClellan called for a siege. It took a month to construct works and haul heavy cannons into place. All the while, his men were getting sick in the swamps that surrounded them. The force that McClellan faced on April 1: 13,000 Confederate soldiers. That inaccurate map cost McClellan a chance to quickly move on Richmond, and it cost him men and material.

   But there is another case of a poorly drawn map. This one cost the Confederates. After the wounding of Confederate commander Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines on May 31, Robert E. Lee was placed in command of the newly styled Army of Northern Virginia. Lee developed a plan in which Stonewall Jackson’s force would leave the Shenandoah Valley and arrive on the battlefield below Richmond. Once in position, he could flank the Federals while other Confederate divisions’ assaults pressured the front. Yet on day one of the offensive, June 26, Jackson sat at Hundley’s Corner, two and a half miles north of where he should have been. This intersection was not on his map. According to Stephen Sears, “Jackson apparently reasoned that it would be late before he could reach the scene and to move blindly would be dangerous in any event. He elected to put his army in bivouac for the night and await the new day to set matters straight.” (To the Gates of Richmond, 199) Jackson’s bad map proved costly to the Confederates. Brig. Gen. Lawrence Branch and his brigade, the link between Jackson and the rest of the Confederate army, after receiving word from Jackson earlier in the day that he was close (he was not), marched toward Mechanicsville. Skirmishing broke out. A. P. hill believed that everything was in place and launched his attack. As the day worn on, other Confederate divisions became involved. Several attacks were repulsed, and Lee lost somewhere around 1,500 men. The only positive outcome was that the Federals abandoned their position on that night.

   Two events, the same campaign, two mad maps.