>Taking advantage of heavy rains that swelled the Chickahominy and split the Army of the Potomac in half, Joe Johnston decided to fall upon the half that was south of the river. At the Seven Pines crossroad the Union position was held by Silas Casey's division of Keyes's 4th Corps, the greenest and least well equipped division in the army. At around noon on May 31, D.H. Hill's Confederates came bounding out of the woods to the west of Casey's earthworks and viciously fell upon them. The Union troops were taken by surprise and fell back in panic. Casey put in a frantic call for reinforcements and Keyes's other division, led by Darius Couch, stationed two miles to the east, rushed to the scene. The 2nd Corps was north of the Chickahominy and ordered to the attack as well.>Although the rain swollen river was overflowing its banks, Edwin Sumner dismissed protests that crossing was impossible. An old-time regular in his 60s, Sumner had been in the army since James Monroe was president and was known for his huge, booming voice and rigid regular army manner--he also had the nickname "Bull Head" for an incident in Mexico when a musket ball deflected off his head. He replied "Sir, I tell you I can cross. I am ordered!" The 2nd Corps got across and met William Whiting's Confederate division north of the main battlefield at Fair Oak Station. Whiting attacked John Sedgewick's division and was repulsed with heavy losses; three of his four brigade commanders went down in the fight.
>Around the Seven Pines crossroads, Casey's division formed a second line of defense but Micah Jenkins's demi-brigade of two South Carolina regiments flanked it and the line collapsed. Couch came up and a vicious battle raged around the crossroads. Joe Johnston's attack plan didn't quite go off due to deficient staff work and communications; James Longstreet failed to advance his division in support of Hill's attack as was planned. The Union 3rd Corps and the other 2nd Corps division under Israel Richardson came up; on the Confederate side D.H. Hill's exhausted troops were relieved by Longstreet and the battle resumed the next day.>The fresh Union troops attacked at daybreak and gradually forced Longstreet back; wounded in this fight was Oliver Howard, commanding one of Richardson's brigades, who had his left arm shattered by a Minie ball. It had to be amputated and Howard was out of action until the fall months; the one-armed Phil Kearny, who had lost his right arm to a cannonball in Mexico, told him "Don't think it too bad, Howard. We can buy our gloves together."
>The fighting ended around noon and was little more than a bloody stalemate. Both sides' troops returned to their earthworks and all that had seemingly been accomplished was killing or wounding 11,000 men; after Shiloh, it was the largest and bloodiest battle of the war so far. The smell of unburied corpses lingered over the area for a good two weeks after the battle. A more significant consequence of Seven Pines was the wounding of Joe Johnston, who was struck in the shoulder by a bullet while conversing with staff near the Fair Oaks station, after which a shell fragment hit him in the chest and knocked him from his horse. Johnston would spend a few months recuperating and Jefferson Davis appointed Robert E. Lee commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
>Reddit retards always say the confederates couldn’t win the war>There were multiple occasions when entire Yankee armies came within a cunt hair of being annihilated The confederates just needed a bit more dumb luck and they’d have won. The northern public wasn’t going to accept losing 60,000 men in a day
>>18254535>The northern public wasn’t going to accept losing 60,000 men in a dayHuge losses were normal in European wars, Americans weren't used to that since all previous wars the nation fought were basically bush wars.
>>18254528McClellan had a huge beef with Erasmus Keyes and Silas Casey and considered both totally incompetent; after the campaign was over he left them on the peninsula and didn't take them back to Washington with the rest of the army.
