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Mistakes That Helped Shape U.S. into What it Is Today

Khalid Elhassan October 16, 2019 34 min

14. McClellan Misses the Chance to Capture Richmond

A field hospital with weary and wounded Union men in the aftermath of the Seven Days Battle. Encyclopedia Britannica

For a good month, McClellan methodically prepared his army for a huge attack to break through Magruder’s supposedly “strong defenses”. The Union commander concentrated men, guns, and munitions for a massive bombardment scheduled for May 5^th, 1862, followed by an overwhelming attack. His opponent had other plans.

Having already bought his side a month to prepare the defense of Richmond, Magruder slipped away on the night of May 3^rd, 1862, leaving behind empty trenches for his enemy to occupy. McClellan resumed his advance on Richmond, but by then the Confederates had concentrated sufficient forces to thwart him. The Union forces were halted, then pushed back to their starting point with furious attacks during the Seven Days Battles, which brought McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign came to an ignominious end.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.