“No action of the civil war has been so little understood as that of Seven Pines,” Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston would write in his 1874 memoir, Narrative of Military Operations. Ironic, as Johnston’s own actions during and after the critical Peninsula Campaign battle on May 31–June 1, 1862, are certainly a reason why this is so.
Captain George W. Mindil of the 61st Pennsylvania Infantry, a staff officer in the Union Army of the Potomac that faced Johnston’s Army of Northern Virginia during the battle, later observed that the enemy commander’s “plan was faultless….[H]ad this plan been fully executed…the left wing of McClellan’s army would have sustained irreparable disaster and the retreat of the whole [Union] army would have followed.”
Instead, the outcome of the two-day clash that resulted in more than 11,000 casualties (typically known to Northerners as Fair Oaks) was inconclusive. In addition, controversy and acrimony arose when both Johnston and one of his top subordinates, Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, audaciously asserted that despite a simple “misunderstanding” between the two, victory still would have been possible had it not been for the “incompetence” of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger, a division commander in Longstreet’s Right Wing.
The word “misunderstanding” generally implies the commission of an honest mistake or perhaps a communication failure—usually indicating no ill-intent by the participants. The purported miscue at Seven Pines, however, was a well-crafted fabrication designed both to shield Longstreet’s poor decision-making and insubordinate conduct during the battle and to deflect attention away from Johnston’s own leadership failures.
As Colonel Charles Marshall, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s aidede-camp, would caustically point out, Johnston had the knack of compensating for his deficiencies through his use of the “certain ‘agility’ of explanation.” Regarding Johnston’s post–Seven Pines account, Marshall wrote that “a lie well adhered to & often repeated, will sometimes serve a man’s purpose as well as the truth & better.”
By late May 1862, Johnston’s relationship with Confederate President Jefferson Davis was so strained, had he acknowledged the truth about the battle, it would have tarnished both his and Longstreet’s reputations. That left the unfortunate Huger as the target of an unconscionable attack.
“Misunderstanding” first appeared in Johnston’s June 28, 1862, letter to Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith, his Left Wing commander, in response to Smith’s after-action report. “My Dear Gustavus,” Johnston wrote, “I inclose herewith the first three sheets of your report, to ask a modification, or omission rather. They contain two subjects which I intended never to make generally known. I refer to the misunderstanding [italics added by author] between Longstreet and myself in regard to the direction of his division.”
The relationship between Johnston and Smith had once been close. In August 1861, in fact, Johnston wrote to Davis that “Smith is an officer of high ability, fit to command in chief.” And the following February, Johnston informed Davis: “I regard Maj. Gen. G.W. Smith as absolutely necessary to this army.”
