The Battle of Williamsburg: Longstreet Buys Time

On the night of May third and fourth, eighteen sixty-two, the Confederate army quietly pulled out of the Warwick Line, the fortified string of earthworks stretched across the Virginia Peninsula, and began marching toward Richmond. General Joseph Johnston had held that line long enough. Now he needed to move before McClellan could trap him.

But an army on the march is vulnerable, and Johnston needed someone to buy time. He turned to Major General James Longstreet, who took up position just south of Williamsburg at a line of fourteen redoubts. The key fortification was Fort Magruder, an earthen strongpoint alongside the Williamsburg Road.

When Union forces caught up on May fifth, the fighting was fierce and confused. General Joe Hooker's division slammed into Fort Magruder and was thrown back. Union Brigadier General Winfield Scott Hancock, however, found an undefended gap in the Confederate line on the left, moved through it, and repulsed a disjointed Confederate charge led by Jubal Early, the only clear tactical advantage either side gained all day.

Nearly forty-one thousand Federals and thirty-two thousand Confederates were in the area, though far fewer actually fought. Casualties on both sides combined exceeded thirty-seven hundred men. And yet the battle was inconclusive in the conventional sense, because the Confederates had never intended to hold Williamsburg. Longstreet pulled out overnight, and Johnston's army continued its retreat toward Richmond.

The battle mattered not for what it decided but for what it prevented. McClellan did not crush the Confederate rear guard. He did not disrupt the retreat. Johnston's army reached Richmond intact, regrouped, and, after Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines and Robert E. Lee took command, launched the Seven Days counteroffensive that drove McClellan back from the gates of the Confederate capital.