 Despite the defeat on Malvern Hill , the Seven Days Battles accomplished the original Confederate goal of removing any direct threat to Richmond from the Union Army . The three newspapers in Richmond exulted in this strategic victory and lionized Robert E. Lee as a national hero : " No captain that ever lived , " opined the Richmond Dispatch , " could have planned or executed a better plan . " Similarly , Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory said , " the Great McClelland [ sic ] the young Napoleon now like a whipped cur lies on the banks of the James River crouched under his Gun Boats . " Throughout Richmond and the once @-@ beleaguered South , there was a triumphant mood , and scant attention was paid to the flaws in Lee 's tactics or execution . 
