Civil Warriors

Today is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Oak Grove (or King’s School House), the opening engagement of the Seven Days Battles, which was fought on what is today the grounds of Richmond International Airport.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Redoubt Numbers 3, June 25, 1862–5 p.m.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

The affair is over, and we have gained our point fully and with but little loss, notwithstanding strong opposition. Our men have done all that could be desired. The affair was probably decided by two guns that Captain De Russy brought gallantly into action under very difficult circumstances. The enemy driven from his camps in front of this and all now quiet.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Camp Lincoln, June 25, 1862–6.15 p. m.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

I have just returned from the field, and find your dispatch in regard to Jackson.

Several contrabands just in give information confirming the supposition that Jackson’s advance is at or near Hanover Court-House, and that Beauregard arrived, with strong re-enforcements, in Richmond yesterday.

I incline to think that Jackson will attack my right and rear. The rebel force is stated at 200,000, including Jackson and Beauregard. I shall have to contend against vastly superior odds if these reports be true; but this army will do all in the power of men to hold their position and repulse any attack.

I regret my great inferiority in numbers, but feel that I am in no way responsible for it, as I have not failed to represent repeatedly the necessity of re-enforcements; that this was the decisive point, and that all the available means of the Government should be concentrated here. I will do all that a general can do with the splendid army I have the honor to command, and if it is destroyed by overwhelming numbers, can at least die with it and share its fate. But if the result of the action, which will probably occur to-morrow, or within a short time, is a disaster, the responsibility cannot be thrown on my shoulders; it must rest where it belongs.

Since I commenced this I have received additional intelligence confirming the supposition in regard to Jackson’s movements and Beauregard’s arrival. I shall probably be attacked to-morrow, and now go to the other side of the Chickahominy to arrange for the defense on that side. I feel that there is no use in again asking for re-enforcements.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General.

U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (70 vols. in 128 parts; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), ser. 1, vol. 11, pt. 1: 51, pt. 3: 251-52.

Later this week, I will be busing and walking the battlefields of the Virginia peninsula in the company of my good friends from the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War. From the looks of the weather report, it is going to be hot, hot, hot in more than one sense of the word!