Army_of_the_Peninsula

Army of the Peninsula

Army of the Peninsula

Military unit

The Army of the Peninsula or Magruder's Army[2] was a Confederate army early in the American Civil War.

Flag of the Army of the Peninsula
Quick Facts Active, Disbanded ...

In May 1861, Colonel John B. Magruder was assigned to command operations on the lower Virginia Peninsula with Yorktown as headquarters.[1] The Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker ordered the Department of the Peninsula into existence on May 26, and the military force was named for the department. Magruder fought a portion of his command to good effect at Big Bethel, an early Confederate victory.[1]

By year's end, the force had swollen to 13,000 men, still commanded by Magruder, now major general. In April 1862 Magruder's army was incorporated into the right wing of the larger army of Joseph E. Johnston, preparing defenses against an expected attack by George B. McClellan in what would become the Peninsula Campaign. While the army designation ceased to exist, Magruder's army's independence and initiative was instrumental in preventing McClellan from rapidly advancing on Richmond.[2]

Notes

  1. [1]
    Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. The Civil War Dictionary. page 632
  2. [2]
    Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. The Civil War Dictionary. page 501

References

  • Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. The Civil War Dictionary. New York: McKay, 1959; revised 1988. ISBN 0-8129-1726-X.
Stub icon 1 Stub icon 2

This article about a specific military unit of the American Civil War is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Army_of_the_Peninsula, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.