Plan of the Battle of Savage's Station, Va.

Fought Sunday, June 29, 1862.
 
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CONFUSION AND DARKNESS: THE SEVEN DAYS

For nearly a month after the Battle of Fair Oaks, the Army of the Potomac lay idle astride the Chickahominy River. Even though McClellan maintained a numerical advantage over his opponent, he acted as though he were in grave danger. His spies told him that the Confederates had 200,000 troops in Richmond, when in reality the southern army had less than half that number. In mid-June, Confederate cavalry under Jeb Stuart rode completely around the Federal army, disrupting communications and leaving the impression that the Rebels were everywhere. Despite constant entreaties from Washington, McClellan hesitated to act. With tentative plans to begin another siege, he said he needed more time to build bridges across the Chickahominy and to bring up his big guns. In the meantime, he kept up demands for reinforcements that he had been making since March. For a while it seemed as if Lincoln would comply; but the threat posed in the Shenandoah Valley by Stonewall Jackson's army permitted only one division to be sent to McClellan. In the meantime, he readjusted his army's disposition, moving all but one of his corps south of the Chickahominy.

In the Union camps, the men began to recover from the Fair Oaks battle and waited anxiously for the next move. They also went to work with pick and shovel to prepare for siege work. Drawings in Sneden's scrapbook indicate that he visited several key sites along the Union lines, including the army's great supply base at White House Landing and some of the bridges crossing the Chickahominy. With headquarters at Savage's Station, General Heintzelman spent long hours writing his after-action reports, no doubt enlisting the aid of Sneden to prepare maps. He grumbled constantly about fellow generals, about insults given and received, and about who deserved credit for this action or that. Rumors of impending plans and Confederate actions filled his pages. He rarely slept through the night, for although the army sat idle, its days and nights were frequently interrupted by sharp clashes on the picket line and the boom of cannonading. Sudden and violent thunderstorms brought only temporary relief from the rising heat and humidity of the oncoming summer.

While McClellan kept his soldiers relatively inert, his opponent, Robert E. Lee, made good use of this valuable time. He whipped the Confederate army into fighting shape, and he developed a bold plan to drive the Union host from Richmond. While part of his army held the Federals in check east of the city, Lee would launch a full-scale attack on the one isolated Union corps north of the Chickahominy, thereby threatening McClellan's supply line. The assault would also drive McClellan out of his entrenchments and force him to fight in the open. To ensure success, Lee brought Jackson's army from the Shenandoah Valley to join in the offensive.

The first round of what would be known as the Seven Days battles began on June 25. Rebel troops east of Richmond launched a short, but violent assault on Heintzelman's corps at Oak Grove to make McClellan think that a strong army was in front of him. Then on June 26, the weight of Lee's attack fell on McClellan's right at Mechanicsville. The next day Jackson joined the assault at Gaines Mill. By late June 27, McClellan had seen enough; he decided to retreat to Harrison's Landing on the James River where his gunboats could protect him. Still the Confederates came on, hammering the Union army at every turn and threatening to cut off and capture large numbers of retreating soldiers.

Robert Sneden and his comrades in Heintzelman's corps found themselves caught in the middle of a maelstrom created by the Confederate offensive. Late the afternoon of June 29, Rebel troops under John Marauder attacked Union forces as they retreated from Savage's Station. Darkness saved the Union rear guard from a serious defeat. But as they withdrew during the night, the Federals abandoned huge quantities of supplies and more than 2,000 sick and wounded men in a field hospital. Sneden's account begins on the eve of the battle of Savage's Station.

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