Savage Station - Sandston, VA
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archway
N 37° 31.696 W 077° 16.143
18S E 299500 N 4155896
Placed by the Battlefield Markers Association, marker #13 describes the Battle of Savage's Station, one of the Seven Days Battles in 1862.
Waymark Code: WM7612
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 09/07/2009
Views: 4
The Seven Days Battles took place in late June and early July 1862. Earlier in June, the Confederate army had stopped the Union's assault on Richmond at the Battle of Seven Pines in what is now Sandston. At the end of that battle, General Robert E. Lee was appointed commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Lee had been an advisor to Jefferson Davis and had a reputation for being cautious. That changed when Lee decided to attack the Union army directly and destroy it before it could retreat to the James River. As an example of this new, aggressive approach, the Confederacy used railway artillery for the first time at Savage's Station. Despite this innovation, the battle ended in a stalemate. The fighting resumed the following day in two separate engagements at White Oak Swamp and Glendale.
Savage Station
In the field beyond this marker was fought June 29, 1862, the battle of Savage Station in which Confederate forces under command of Major-General John B. Magruder attacked indecisively the rearguard of the Federal Army moving toward James River. This was the Third Battle of the Seven Days’ Campaign.
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About the Battlefield Markers (Source: National Park Service):
This is one in a series of 61 markers erected beginning in 1925 to identify the battlefields around Richmond. The tablets were the work of the Battlefield Markers Association, a group of historians committed to commemorating the Richmond battlefields. Most prominent among the association's members was Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, the eminent biographer of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. The work of Dr. Freeman and the Association ultimately led to the purchase of battlefield lands and the establishment of Richmond National Battlefield Park in 1936.