Qualla: Battle of Beaver Dam Creek

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Muhranoff, CC BY-SA 4.0. "There they come like flies on a piece of gingerbread." That was Brigadier General John F. Reynolds, a Pennsylvania officer, gesturing at the Confederate brigades emerging from the woods across Beaver Dam Creek on the afternoon of June 26, 1862. The Confederates had been ordered into a frontal assault on dug-in Union infantry supported by thirty-two guns. It was the opening battle of the Seven Days - Robert E. Lee's first major offensive as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia - and it began with everything going wrong. Stonewall Jackson, who was supposed to flank the Union position, arrived four hours late and then went to sleep four miles away. A.P. Hill, impatient, attacked anyway. Lee himself rode up mid-battle to find his army hurling itself at prepared positions, and when Jefferson Davis arrived with the Confederate cabinet to watch, Lee responded with one of the war's better dry quips: "I don't know, Mr. President. It is not my army and this is no place for it."

Image: Muhranoff | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek: The Plan That Did Not Survive Contact

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Muhranoff, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the Battle of Seven Pines, McClellan's Army of the Potomac had sat at the outskirts of Richmond for almost a month. Lee, newly in command, used the time to reorganize his army and to summon Stonewall Jackson down from the Shenandoah Valley, where Jackson had just finished a...

Image: Muhranoff | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek: Jackson Late, Hill Impatient

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF., Public domain. Jackson's men - exhausted from the long march out of the Shenandoah - ran at least four hours behind schedule on June 26. By 3 p.m. A.P. Hill had had enough. Without orders, he opened the attack. His division entered Mechanicsville and skirmished with George McCall's Pennsylvania...

Image: Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF. | Public domain

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek: Flies on Gingerbread

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF., Public domain. John R. Anderson's brigade hit the Union right; James Archer's and Charles W. Field's brigades supported. Maxcy Gregg's brigade was held in reserve and never engaged. The Union artillery and musketry tore enormous holes in the Confederate lines as they tried to cross the creek. H...

Image: Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF. | Public domain

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek: Jackson Asleep, Lee Sarcastic

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF., Public domain. Jackson arrived on the field late in the afternoon. Unable to find A.P. Hill or D.H. Hill, and apparently uncertain what to do, he ordered his troops to make camp for the night - despite the fact that a major battle was raging within earshot. It remains one of the strangest momen...

Image: Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF. | Public domain

Battle of Beaver Dam Creek: The Tactical Win That Lost the Campaign

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF., Public domain. When darkness fell, Longstreet and the rest of D.H. Hill's division had finally come up. There was no light left to deploy them. By any battlefield measure the day had been a Union victory - the Confederates had taken roughly 1,500 casualties to about 400 Union losses. And yet Mc...

Image: Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (book authors). A list of artists and engravers can be found on p. 23 of the PDF. | Public domain