The Virginia Deadlock

CHAPTER 5 · MAR–AUG 1862 · The American Civil War, 1861–1865

Zoom in on the hundred miles between the capitals, because the East now settles into the pattern it will keep for three years: tactical brilliance, strategic stalemate. McClellan, rather than march overland, ships his enormous army by sea to the Virginia Peninsula — follow the blue arrow from Fort Monroe — and advances on Richmond with a siege engineer’s caution and a spy service that reliably doubles enemy numbers. By late May his men can hear Richmond’s church bells. He is a genius of preparation with an allergy to battle; he waits for reinforcements that Washington, suddenly alarmed for its

The turn: Gaines’ Mill and the Seven Days, 25 June–1 July 1862.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.