The Richmond Campaign of 1862: the Peninsula and the Seven Days.

Edited by Gary W. Gallagher. Military Campaigns of the Civil War. (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, c. 2000, Pp. [xvi], 272. $34.95, ISBN 0-8078-2552-2.)

The Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863 are often cited as the turning points of the Civil War, but overemphasis on these battles tends to minimize other campaigns and battles that, had they turned out differently, might well have changed the outcome of the South's struggle for independence. One of these was the Peninsula campaign of 1862, the attempt by Union forces numbering 100,000 men under General George B. McClellan to move up the Virginia peninsula between the York and James Rivers to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond and thereby end the rebellion once and for all. After indecisive fighting and maneuvering at Yorktown and Williamsburg, the campaign climaxed with the Seven Days battles and its butcher's bill of 35,000 casualties, after which the imperious and ineffective McClellan evacuated his troops from Harrison's Landing on the James, in the process repelling the Confederates in the carnage of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862. By southern determination and faulty northern command, Richmond was thus saved, and in the meantime Robert E. Lee replaced the wounded General Joseph E. Johnston at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia. As a result of this Union failure, the bloodletting went on for almost three more years before ending about 100 miles to the west at Appomattox Courthouse.

The story of the Peninsula campaign has been masterfully told by Stephen W. Sears in his To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (New York, 1992), but Gary Gallagher of the University of Virginia has now assembled further examinations of this campaign. In this volume, nine penetrating essays explore the various dimensions of the battles that saved Richmond, resulted in over 50,000 casualties in five months, and saw the war shift to other locales in the eastern and western theaters.

After Gallagher places the events of the campaign in perspective in an opening essay, John T. Hubbell and William J. Miller take separate looks at George B. McClellan's actions during the campaign. Both are highly critical, and neither is in agreement with recent attempts to refurbish the passive and self-pitying general's deservedly soiled reputation. Hubbell concentrates on McClellan's personality, and Miller points to his failure to use his capable engineers to help extricate himself from his untenable position. These are followed by Robert K. Krick's essay "Sleepless in the Saddle," in which he successfully attempts to explain Stonewall Jackson's failures during the Seven Days by reference to his needless fatigue, followed by Peter S. Carmichael's damning indictment of "Prince John" Magruder's failure in command after his earlier outstanding service on the Peninsula. Turning away from the fields of combat directly, Gallagher next includes an insightful article by James Marten on how the military events on the Peninsula had a powerful impact on accepted southern suppositions regarding race and white loyalty to the cause. This is followed by William A. Blair's careful examination of how the carnage and eventual failure of the Union's campaign to seize Richmond convinced northern moderates that winning the war without untoward violence would not be possible and led Abraham Lincoln to accept the abolitionists' call for the emancipation of the slaves.

Returning to the battles themselves, R. E. L. Krick gives a detailed and compelling account of William H. C. Whiting's division and its critical role in the Confederate victory at Gaines's Mill. This is followed by Keith S. Bohannon's analysis of the artillery duels at Malvern Hill, in which he argues that the Union had the advantage not only of terrain but also of training, an advantage that could have been overcome were it not for flawed Confederate decision making.

Each of the essays in this collection is well researched, well written, and well endnoted, illustrating Gallagher's contention that the Peninsula campaign was indeed a turning point of the war. Collectively, they lead the reader not only into aspects of the Peninsula campaign often overlooked but also into a deeper realization of how carnage and command decisions finally determined the victors and the vanquished in the Civil War. No academic library should be without this volume, and no American military historian should overlook the insights offered by Gallagher and these authors into one of the most important campaigns of the conflict.

JAMES M. MORRIS
Christopher Newport University