Texas Journal of Genealogy and History, Volume I, Fall 2002 Page: 23
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Audentes fortuna juvat: Fortune Favors the
Bold ... But at What Cost?
An examination of the costly Confederate victory boldly won at Gaines' Mill, 27June 1862
Matthew McNiece, Senior History and Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom Major Howard Payne
UniversityAfter his F-16 fighter plane was shot
down out of the sky over Bosnia on
2 June 1995, Captain Scott O'Grady
records the following timeless soldier's
creed as having encouraged him to con-
tinue his exhausting evasion tactics: Au-
dentes fortuna juvat. Fortune favors the
bold.1 A similar thought surely echoed
through the mind of Confederate Briga-
dier General John Bell Hood nearly a
century-and-a-half earlier, as he person-
ally led the gallant 4th Texas Regiment
up a seemingly impregnable hill opposite
Boatswain's Creek into the fading day-
light on 27 June 1862. By nightfall, as
the last reports of cannon and rifle died
away from the terrain southeast of
Gaines' Mill, General Robert E. Lee
telegrammed his Commander-in-Chief
with the following: "[I]t is my pleasing
task to announce to you the success
achieved by this army to-day. The enemy
was this morning driven from his strong
position . . . and finally, after a severe
contest of five hours, entirely repulsed
from the field."2
However, Lee goes on with what
would be a recurrent theme in his victo-
ries. "I grieve to state that our loss in
officers and men is great."3 The pattern
for this, Lee's first great victory as com-
manding officer of the famed Army of
Northern Virginia, would be repeated in
victory at Chancellorsville, and in defeat
at Gettysburg. Lee instituted a plan tac-
tically superior to that proffered by a
tentative Union general, and relied on
the daring of several key officers to win
the day. But these bold maneuvers came
at substantial costs: many brigades at
Gaines' Mill lost nearly half their num-
ber in a few hours of fighting; Lee lost
twenty percent of his army at Chancel-
lorsville; Pickett, who observed the suc-
cessful charge of Hood at Gaines' Mill,
a year later similarly pressed his men up
a hill at Gettysburg to their destruction.
The Battle of Gaines' Mill was the
turning point in the Seven Days' Cam-
paign, which in turn marked the pivotal
moment in McClellan's Peninsular Cam-
paign. Prior to 27 June, McClellan's
force had advanced to less than tenshort miles from the Confederate capital
of Richmond, Virginia. By the end of
the month, McClellan abandoned any
hopes of laying siege to the city, and
withdrew his army more than half-way
back down the peninsula demarked by
the York and James Rivers, to Harri-
son's Landing on the James. By 3 Au-
gust, McClellan had been ordered to
move his troops off the peninsula to a
point at which they would be transferred
to the command of John Pope. McClel-
lan lamented this loss of command while
also predicting a staggering defeat for
Pope: "They are committing a fatal er-
ror in withdrawing me from here, and
the future will show it. I think the result
of their machination will be that Pope
will be badly thrashed in ten days."4 For-
tunately for Pope, McClellan's prophecy
proved inaccurate. It was not until fifteen
days later that Pope was pummeled at
Second Bull Run (Manassas).
Meanwhile, Lee, who had only taken
command on 2 June, parlayed the vic-
tory at Gaines' Mill into desperately
needed time. By forcing the Union army
into a retreat down the peninsula, thus
sparing Richmond for the present, Lee
was able to maneuver his army away
from McClellan's. It was during this pe-
riod that the Army of Northern Virginia
was reorganized into the powerful and
disciplined force that would soon drive
north into Union territory, putting Lin-
coln's generals on the defensive.
Setting up the Board: McClellan and Lee
move toward Gaines' Mill.
The peninsular chess match between
McClellan and Lee lasted an entire
month - from 2 June through 2 July,
1862. Jefferson Davis was forced to put
his trusted advisor, Robert E. Lee, into
the field following Joe Johnston's
wounding at the Battle of Seven Pines;
Johnston became the second (ironically,
another Johnston, Albert Sidney, was
the first) and last commanding officer to
be wounded on the field of battle during
the entire war, and Lee finally escapedthe doldrums he considered his Rich-
mond desk job to be. Clifford Dowdey
aptly describes the change in Confeder-
ate tactical doctrine thusly: "With Lee
the long retreats came to an end. Imme-
diately discarding Johnston's strategy of
evading the enemy, Lee planned to seize
the initiative and fight the enemy at
points of his own choosing ... .[Lee] ar-
ranged to strike a decisive counteroffen-
sive."5
Having successfully stalled the Union
advances on Richmond at the Battle of
Seven Pines, Lee's freshly reorganized
and renamed Army of Northern Virginia
set out to push the enemy away from
their capital. Lee knew that, in order to
drive McClellan back down the penin-
sula, he must endanger the Union sup-
ply lines stemming from the "White
House," located perhaps twenty-five
miles northeast of Richmond, on the
Pamunkey River and along the Rich-
mond and York River Railroad. Doing
so meant the Confederates must success-
fully strike at Union lines north of the
Chickahominy River, forcing the north-
ern sector of McClellan's army east and
away from the north of Richmond. Lee
had approximately seventy-two thousand
troops with which to work, upwards of
eighty-five thousand when including a
brigade far to the south, the artillery
reserve, and the cavalry largely rendered
useless by the terrain soon encountered
north of the Chickahominy. As he would
daringly do in later battles, Lee divided
his troops, leaving Magruder's semi-in-
dependent command of the divisions of
D.R. Jones, McLaws, and Magruder's
own, along with Huger's division from
Lee's army on the south side of the
Chickahominy. This group of approxi-
mately thirty thousand was directed to
hold the Union lines facing Richmond,
while nearly seventy percent of Lee's
army marched to the north to execute a
pincer maneuver on McClellan's flank.
Had Lee realized the size of the Union
force opposite Magruder and Huger, his
plan might have changed substantially -
the brunt of McClellan's 100,000-man
strong Army of the Potomac, namely, II23
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Howard Payne University. Texas Journal of Genealogy and History, Volume I, Fall 2002, periodical, 2002; Brownwood, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth599838/m1/26/: accessed May 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Howard Payne University Library.