Lee's Mill saw the first serious fighting during McClellan's Peninsular Campaign of 1862 (American Civil War). Having landed his army at the tip of the peninsular formed by the James and York rivers, McClellan advanced towards Yorktown, expecting to find the Confederates in position around the town. Instead, he found them in a line across the entire peninsular, partly based on the Warwick River, which runs across the peninsular from south to north, reaching within a mile and a half of the northern shore of the Peninsular.
In 1862 it was a sluggish, boggy stream, about 20-30 yards wide, with a wider area of bogs, fringed by heavy woods. It was naturally a formidable barrier, but a series of dams along the river made it even more difficult to cross. Three of these had been constructed by the Confederate defenders of the line, while two were associated with mills.
At Lee's Mills the dam was just upriver from a bridge, and protected by fortified positions on both sides of the river. However, these positions only contained three pieces of artillery, of which only one was to play any real part in the fighting. Despite this, McClellan judged the Confederate line to be too strong to risk an assault, and settled into a second siege of Yorktown.
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