Airing on WHRO TV 15 and Digital 15.1 Sunday March 9 at 8:00 p.m. and repeating at 9:30 p.m.

When Virginia left the Union in April 1861, Northern and Southern leaders alike recognized the Peninsula as an extremely strategic location.  It was one of the major approaches to the Confederate capital at Richmond.  The bountiful, yet strategic waterways, fertile farm fields, and quiet little towns along this path to Richmond would immediately become the scene of some of the Civil War’s greatest events.  WHRO has produced Peninsula Campaign, the third episode in a series of one-hour, high definition documentaries looking at this tumultuous time in American history to air in March 2008. 

After the disastrous Union defeat at Bull Run on 21 July, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln desired that the Army of the Potomac would again strike against the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.  On November 1, 1861 Lincoln turned to a new general, George Brinton McClellan, to take command of the army. The Federal commander thought that he could trap Major General John Bankhead Magruder’s Army of the Peninsula at Yorktown like George Washington had cornered Lord Cornwallis during the American Revolution in 1781. Robert E. Lee believed the Warwick-Yorktown Line was the best place to defend Richmond on the Peninsula.  Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was not in favor of this action.  Even though he lauded Major General Magruder’s ‘delaying tactics,’ he believed that the Confederates should abandon the Peninsula.  He advised Davis that Confederate positions on the Peninsula should be evacuated. The conflicts in Southeast Virginia during the first six months of 1862 comprise the Civil War’s greatest amphibious operation – the Peninsula Campaign.
 
John V. Quarstein writes and hosts this series produced on location at the scenes of the battles from America’s bloodiest conflict.