BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Cold Harbor Natl Battlefield

VA -- Cold Harbor Natl Battlefield:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. COLD_080210_001.JPG: This monument has been erected by one of their comrades Charles A. Storke in memory of the members of Companies B, L, F, and G of the Thirty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry who here fought on the first day of June 1864.
2. COLD_080210_023.JPG: Cold Harbor Battlefield Richmond Battlefield -- Richmond Nat'l Battlefield Pk – 1862/64 -- Here Grant and Lee, with combined armies numbering some 180,000 men, fought for two weeks in May and June of 1864. They came here directly after the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and North Anna River. Grant stretched his line to seven miles here and attacked, but his assaults, especially on June 1 and 3, failed. Undaunted, he marched his army south to Petersburg and began the long process of cutting Richmond's supply lines. Although these fields and woodlots around Cold Harbor witnessed the determined assaults and bitter close combat customary to 1864 battles, they also saw the evolution from open field fighting to trench warfare. Here the peculiar boom of mortars and the menacing crack of a sharpshooter's rifle came to dominate the front. Cold Harbor Battlefield Tour The 1.2 mile tour road offers good views of both Confederate and Union fortifications. A more thorough understanding can be obtained by walking the self-guided 1.0-mile trail that begins behind the Visitor Center. Cold Harbor National Cemetery is just east of here. The historic Garthright House is across from the cemetery, and a county park beside the house offers more examples of well preserved entrenchments from the battle.
3. COLD_080210_025.JPG: Walk in the Footsteps of History: This one-mile walking trail covers historic ground that witnessed two weeks of intense fighting in June 1864. It winds through earthen fortifications built more than a century ago. The Cold Harbor battle raged over thousands of acres, and this loop trail traverses only a small portion of the battlefield. You can help protect the historic earthworks of this site by walking only on the trail. These fragile fortifications can be preserved only through a respectful appreciation of their importance. Allow 45 minutes to complete the trail.
4. COLD_080210_027.JPG: Read's Batallion CSA Artillery These cannon mark the approximate position of a four-gun battery belonging to the Richmond Fayette Artillery, part of Major J.P.W. Read's Battalion that held strategic points along the Confederate main line. The battery supported General Alfred H. Colquitt's Georgia brigade on June 1, 1864, and took part in the repulse of a Union attack that evening. On the morning of June 3, Read's gunners were again called to action. They directed an intense and accurate fire toward the advancing Federal infantry -- part of General U.S. Grant's all-out assault against Lee's lines. Lieutenant Eli Nichols of the 8th New York Heavy Artillery recalled the devastation caused by these Confederate artillerists: "few men fell until we reached within [eighty yards] of the enemy's first line, when they opened upon us with canister [and] grape hurling it into our faces and mowing down our lines as wheat falls before the reaper."
5. COLD_080210_030.JPG: Read's Battalion CSA Artillery
6. COLD_080210_032.JPG: We Must Hold This Line: After two days of bitter combat, Confederate infantry built their final line of defense across this spot. Remnants of that line are visible emerging from the woods to your left. Richmond stood only nine miles to the southwest and General Lee knew that he must hold here. A Federal victory could mean the destruction of his army and the fall of the Confederate capital. Once completed, the opposing battle lines at Cold Harbor stretched nearly seven miles. You are standing at the center of the Confederate position.
7. COLD_080210_044.JPG: Keep Your Head Down: This shallow, winding depression is all that remains of a "zigzag" constructed by Union troops in June 1864. In trench warfare, soldiers dug ditches, called zigzags or covered-ways, to provide protection from sharpshooters as they moved from one line of entrenchments to another. Soldiers at Cold Harbor crawled through covered-ways carrying heavy loads of rations or ammunition, prompting one infantryman to remark that he felt "like some unholy cross between a pack mule and a snake."
8. COLD_080210_046.JPG: Zigzag remnants used by the Union troops to avoid Confederate sharpshooter fire.
9. COLD_080210_053.JPG: Battle of Cold Harbor: (Freeman marker) The field of the heaviest losses. This was approximately the farthest point gained and held by the Federals in their assaults of June 3, 1864 on the Confederate main line 160 yards to the west. The heaviest losses sustained by the Federals were along and on either side of this road.
10. COLD_080210_055.JPG: Freeman marker
11. COLD_080210_064.JPG: These earthworks are visible reminders of the heavy fighting that occurred here. Please help preserve these fragile earthworks for future generations by not climbing or walking on them.
12. COLD_080210_065.JPG: Keep Digging: These trenches represent a dramatic change in battlefield tactics. When the two armies met on this ground in 1862, soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder; victory was often dependent upon the success or failure of a dramatic charge. By 1864, field fortifications played an increasingly significant role in determining the outcome of a battle. Despite the obvious advantage held by an entrenched army, commanders continued to order frontal assaults against these nearly impregnable positions, resulting in enormous casualties.
13. COLD_080210_074.JPG: Mapping the Battlefield: In 1867, working under the supervision of Brigadier General Nathaniel Michler and Lieutenant Colonel Peter Michie, the Engineer Corps produced this detailed map of the Cold Harbor battlefield. It remains the most significant source of information for the appearance of the battlefield in 1864. The map clearly delineates the enormity of the battlefield. The massive pattern made by line after line of trenches represents two weeks of constant digging.
14. COLD_080210_077.JPG: We Can Go No Farther: On the morning of June 3, 1864, Major General Horatio Wright's Union Sixth Corps fought gallantly to reach this point. Combined Confederate infantry and artillery fire halted their advance. Throughout the remainder of the day, Wright's men gouged out shallow trenches using bayonets, canteen-halves, and tin cups. At night, the soldiers strengthened these works by piling dirt high enough for a man to stand behind without getting shot.
15. COLD_080210_086.JPG: Union troops from the Sixth Corps came sweeping down this ravine, which the Confederates had left unprotected.
16. COLD_080210_095.JPG: 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery memorial. They were part of the group that broke through in the ravine.
17. COLD_080210_106.JPG: We Have Broken Through: This ravine played a critical role in the early stages of fighting at Cold Harbor. On the afternoon of June 1, 1864, Thomas L. Clingman's North Carolinians and William T. Wofford's Georgians, attempting to hold this position, failed to occupy the low swampy ground in the ravine. Union soldiers of the Sixth Corps took advantage of this weakness by attacking along the drainage and piercing the Confederate defenses. Southern reserves quickly rushed forward and drove back the attackers, sealing the break in the line. A new line was then built a short distance to the west.
18. COLD_080210_109.JPG: Stand Guard and Stay Awake: This well preserved rifle pit is one of many that extended across this hilltop and along the entire front. It marks the most advanced Federal position in this sector, only 50 yards from similar Confederate pits on the opposite crest. Soldiers posted in these depressions gave early warning of any unusual enemy movements. Because they were so close to the enemy, many of these positions could be occupied only at night.
19. COLD_080210_112.JPG: A Deadly Delay: The Union assaults of June 3 failed on nearly all fronts. For the next three days, while Federal wounded lay untended between the lines, General U.S. Grant and R.E. Lee struggled over the details of a truce. On June 7, more than 100 hours after the attack, the generals agreed to a two-hour truce. Along one part of the line work parties found 244 Union dead and only three survivors. One New Jersey soldier recalled that during the truce the former enemies were: "talking to each other and exchanging newspapers... the works were lined with unarmed men, all gazing upon the solemn scene. The 2 hours soon passed, the signal was given, the men rushed back to their arms, and the rattle of musketry was again commenced along the line."
20. COLD_080210_115.JPG: A Lethal Occupation: From this advanced Confederate line, constructed after the grand Union assault of June 3, Lee's sharpshooters searched for targets. They were near enough to the Federal line that enemy voices could be heard. Between June 3 and June 12, constantly skirmishing, artillery firing, and the deadly business of the Union and Confederate sharpshooters characterized the Cold Harbor fighting. Up and down the lines soldiers feared the work of these marksmen with their long range rifles. One Virginia artilleryman considered the sharpshooter "little better than a human tiger lying in wait for blood."
21. COLD_080210_124.JPG: The Waters Ran Red: This sluggish creek is known as Bloody Run in memory of the violent hand-to-hand fighting that occurred here. Bloody Run flows east to west, winding through the woods. During the battle the brush-choked stream and its gentle slopes provided the only cover in sight. The open terrain in this area made the powerful Confederate defenses on the hill to your left even more formidable, and contributed to the overwhelming victory of the Southern army on June 3.
22. COLD_080210_125.JPG: The river through the ravine that ran red
23. COLD_080210_134.JPG: Bayonets Are For Digging: This covered-way, constructed after June 3, connected the main Confederate line behind you to the low ground in front. A South Carolinian stationed near here recalled: "To guard against the shells that were continually dropping in our midst or outside of our works, the soldiers began burrowing like rabbits in rear of our earthworks and building covered-ways from their breastwork to the ground below. In a few days, men could go the length of a regiment without being exposed in the least, crawling along the tunnels all dug with bayonets, knives, and a few work-out shovels."
24. COLD_080210_140.JPG: Old Confederate trenchlines
25. COLD_080210_149.JPG: Those People Stand No Chance: From this dominating position, Confederates of Major General Robert Hoke's Division, easily repulsed part of the famous June 3 assault. For the South Carolinians holding this line, the battle ended before they knew a serious charge had been made. "[I was] situated near the centre of the line along which this murderous repulse was given, and awake and vigilant of the progress of events, [and] was not aware at any time of any serious assault having been given." -- Johnson Hagood, Confederate Officer By the summer of 1864, construction of earthen defenses had become a refined science. This section of well preserved fortifications lacks only the "header log" through which the soldiers fired.
26. COLD_080210_162.JPG: Nowhere To Go: For nearly two weeks, from June 3 to June 12, the soldiers endured the agony of trench warfare. One Virginian recalled: "Thousands of men cramped up in a narrow trench, unable to go out, or to get up, or to stretch or to stand, without danger to life and limb; unable to lie down or to sleep for lack of room and pressure of peril; night alarms, day attacks, hunger, thirst, supreme weariness, squalor, vermin, filth, disgusting odor everywhere, the weary night succeeded by the yet more weary day; the first glance over the way at day dawn bringing the sharpshooter's bullet singing past your ear or smashing through your skull, a man's life is often exacted as the price of a cup of water from the spring."
27. COLD_080210_180.JPG: The Ultimate Sacrifice: The losses sustained by both armies during the Wilderness to Cold Harbor campaign made the world shudder. Casualties by some estimates averaged 2,000 per day, and at Cold Harbor nearly 18,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. While Confederate dead were removed and taken to Richmond, Union dead were hastily buried in shallow trenches near where they fell. In 1866, burial parties scoured the battlefields, collecting the remains and reburying them just east of here. Today 2,000 Union soldiers lie buried at the Cold Harbor National Cemetery.
28. COLD_080210_194.JPG: Confederate Position: These earthworks are the center of the Confederate line -- six miles of overlapping entrenchments. Taking advantage of the Union delay, the Confederates prepared defenses that swept every approach with cannon and rifle musket. Across open ground came the Union assault, lethally exposed. Today there are trees, some undergrowth. On June 3, 1864, Federal soldiers had no place to take cover.
29. COLD_080210_196.JPG: Confederate position
30. COLD_080210_198.JPG: We're at the Confederate position but you can see in the distance a car parked where the Union position was.
31. COLD_080210_201.JPG: Union Position: The night before, Union soldiers write their names on scraps of paper fastened to their clothing, hoping to be identified after the battle. At 4:30am, they are ordered to attack the Confederate earthworks clearly visible across the open field. Most of the dying is over in thirty minutes. Unable to advance or retreat, the surviving Federals use spoons, forks, or bayonets to dig in where they lie, beneath a waist-high ceiling of fire. Afterward, the Union Army built the more elaborate entrenchment behind you. Ten days later, in secrecy, Grant abandoned the position to march on Petersburg. Seven thousand killed and wounded soldiers lay in the blistering sun between the trenches. "Vain calls for relief smote upon the ears of their comrades at every lull in the firing," wrote Lt. Colonel Charles H. Mingus.
32. COLD_080210_205.JPG: Union line looking toward the Confederate lines
33. COLD_080210_218.JPG: Buildings falling apart right next to the battlefield
34. COLD_080210_219.JPG: The Garthright House
35. COLD_080210_222.JPG: Cold Harbor: June 2, 1864 Hanover County Parks and Recreation This drawing (below) by the famous Civil-War artist, Alfred Waud, provides a rare glimpse of the Cold Harbor battlefield, sketched from this very spot on June 2, 1864. Union cannons blazed away at the Confederate lines only a half-mile in front of you. The Garthright House and outbuildings can be seen in the background. The tree-lined Cold Harbor road sits off to the right. The sketch appeared in the June 25, 1864, issue of Harper's Weekly with the following description by the artist: "At this point the Second and Sixth Corps join. One of Gibbon's brigades (M'kean's Second Disision, Second Corps) appears on the left of the picture, massed under a crest. In this brigade are the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts, etc. To the right of the house is the old Jersey brigade of the Sixth Corps. Their term of service expires June 3, and they leave the army with an unsurpassed reputation. The lines these troops hold have been taken from the enemy, and are not more than a hundred yards from the rebel front. The smoke on the extreme left marks the position of a section of Stevens's [5th Maine] battery, while Mott's [3rd New York Independent] battery occupies the foreground. These and other batteries at this point soon silenced the enemy's artillery, while musket-balls in reckless profusion swept the rifle-pits, among which the dead and wounded lay thickly."
36. COLD_080210_228.JPG: The national cemetery across the street
37. COLD_080210_231.JPG: Garthright House: Field Hospital: During the Battle of Cold Harbor in June, 1864, the Union turned this middle-class plantation into a field hospital. The residents -- forced to move to the basement -- watched blood dripping down between the floorboards. After Grant left for Petersburg, the Confederates set up their field hospital in the Garthright House.
38. COLD_080210_235.JPG: Garthright House
39. COLD_080210_236.JPG: The Family Cemetery: "Near Cold Harbor stands the house where my father was born, and not far from the house there is a graveyard, surrounded by a brick wall... there sleep the generations of my forefathers. In that enclosure is buried Mr. James Hooper." -- Dr. Thomas W. Hooper, 1895 James Hooper died in 1754. Following the Hoopers, the old farmhouse and surrounding fields were home to the Garthrights during the Civil War and the McGhees in later years. Members of both families probably are buried in this cemetery. After the battles in 1862 and 1864, numerous Union soldiers were interred haphazardly on the property. In 1866, most of their remains were recovered and removed to the military cemetery across the street. It is unknown whether any soldiers are still buried here in the family cemetery.
40. COLD_080210_241.JPG: Garthright family cemetery
41. COLD_080210_260.JPG: Cold Harbor Battlefield Walking Trail: For thirteen days, Union and Confederate armies faced each other around Cold Harbor, their lines separated by only 150 yards of ravaged ground. Twice, on June 1 and June 3, 1864, savage fighting erupted when the Federals launched massive assaults against the entrenched Confederates. You are standing near the center of the Union lines, held by the Sixth Corps. From here, Grant's line extended two miles south to the Chickahominy River and nearly five miles to the north. To view this section of the Cold Harbor battlefield, take the one-mile walking trail that winds past the historic Garthright House and well-preserved Union infantry and artillery emplacements. Across the road is the Cold Harbor National Cemetery, the final resting-place for many of the Federal soldiers who died in the fighting. A half-mile to the west is a section of the Cold Harbor battlefield managed by the National Park Service. Park facilities, including a visitor center, driving tour, and walking trail, are open daily.
42. COLD_080210_261.JPG: The Battle Begins: By mid-afternoon on June 1, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant massed 45,000 Federals near Old Cold Harbor, 800 yards east of here. At 5:00pm, he ordered an attack, hoping to split Lee's army into two parts. Six veteran New Jersey regiments under Colonel William H. Penrose crossed this ground and passed the nearby Garthright House. At first, a "death-dealing artillery fire" raked the Federals, then blasts of Confederate musketry. The Federal attack stalled after an advance of more than a half mile. Penrose's men quickly started digging a line of works 400 yards in front of you; for the remainder of the battle that would be the Union front line. Killed in this bloody attack was Sergeant-Major A. Vorhes Wyckoff of the 15th New Jersey. Shot through the head, he died the next morning and was buried in the yard of the Garthright House. Today, he rests across the road in the Cold Harbor National Cemetery.
43. COLD_080210_264.JPG: From Farmland to Forest: Time has changed this landscape dramatically since the war. In 1864, much of the Cold Harbor area was cleared farmland. One Federal believed this openness of the land was "the greatest part of the misery" at Cold Harbor. The deadly fire of Confederate sharpshooters prevented Union soldiers from moving freely behind the lines. "There was no cover from the fire of the enemy," a veteran observed, except in the trench itself. To move safely between the front and rear, Union troops constructed six parallel lines of breastworks. You are standing between the 4th and 5th line of works.
44. COLD_080210_265.JPG: The remaining photos of trenches and such are in the Hanover County park
45. COLD_080210_267.JPG: Union Reserve Line: The Union front lines lay 325 yards west of here; reserve troops occupied this ground. These Union pits may have been a stop along the relay system that brought reinforcements and supplies to the forward line. Imagine soldiers huddled inside these trenches, with their rifles, canteens, blankets, and haversacks, waiting for the call to the front. "The baking down of the summer sun became so intolerable," remarked one veteran, "that the line of men would canopy the whole trench with their blankets." Overcrowded conditions, poor sanitation, and too few rations allowed sickness and disease to weaken Grant's army. Nearly 3,000 Federal soldiers reported to Union hospitals during the two weeks at Cold Harbor.
46. COLD_080210_273.JPG: Union pits in the reserve area
47. COLD_080210_278.JPG: Preparation for Battle: On June 2, 1864, the night before the grand assault at Cold Harbor, Union staff officers passed among the battle lines issuing orders. One officer, Major Horace Porter, was in this vicinity when he witnessed a scene of foreboding. Porter recalled: "As I came near one of the regiments which was making preparations for the next morning's assault, I noticed that many of the soldiers had taken off their coats, and seemed to be engaged in sewing up rents in them. This exhibition of tailoring seemed rather peculiar at such a moment, but upon closer examination it was found that the men were calmly writing their names and addresses on slips of paper, and pinning them on the backs of their coats, so that their dead bodies might be recognized upon the field, and their fate made known to their families at home... Such courage is more than heroic -- it is sublime."
48. COLD_080210_280.JPG: The Deadly Work of Sharpshooters: Adding to the misery of the Union and Confederate soldiers at Cold Harbor was the fear of enemy sharpshooters. Quite often armed with special rifles, these marksmen would prey on any unfortunate soldier who appeared in their sights. A Confederate officer described their tactics at Cold Harbor. "If one caught a glimpse of any enemy any where, he would sight carefully at that spot... if someone appeared, he had only to press his trigger." A soldier from the 15th New Jersey Infantry was killed in this vicinity when he reported to his colonel that he had completed digging a grave for one of his comrades. "Instantly, a musket ball struck him in the face and he fell dying at our feet. He was laid in the grave he had dug. We widened it for two." While it is impossible to be certain how the pit before you was used, it is typical of the defensive positions that sharpshooters would employ in their deadly work. Other chose to climb tall trees to be able to spot enemy movements behind the main lines. Confederate sharpshooter targeting his Union victim. Civil War rifles were surprisingly accurate, and successful "hits" were not uncommon at 1,000 yards.
49. COLD_080210_283.JPG: Possible sniper pit
50. COLD_080210_285.JPG: Digging In: By the time the armies reached Cold Harbor, soldiers on both sides were adept at building earthworks. The trenches before you are typical of the works that stretched for nearly seven miles and defined the fighting here at Cold Harbor. Union general John Gibbon wrote, "A few hours were all that was necessary to render any position so strong by breastworks that the opposite party was unable to carry it and it became a recognized fact amongst the men themselves that when the enemy had occupied a position six or eight hours ahead of us, it was useless to attempt to take it."
51. COLD_080210_288.JPG: Misery In The Trenches: The earthworks before you were home to Union soldiers for nearly two weeks during the fighting at Cold Harbor. One Federal officer described the suffering that these troops endured living and working in the trenches: "The work of intrenching could only be done at night. The fire of sharp-shooters was incessant, and no man upon all that line could stand erect and live an instant. This condition of things continued for twelve days and nights: Sharp-shooters' fire from both sides went on all day; all night the zig-zags and parallels nearer to the enemy's works were being constructed. In none of its marches by day or night did that army suffer more than during those twelve days."
52. COLD_080210_295.JPG: A Well-Preserved Union Artillery Position: You are standing in front of a Union artillery battery, located on a commanding hill about 400 yards behind the front lines. From here, Union officers watched for activity along the Confederate lines, and opened fire with a barrage of shells whenever they spotted a target. Southern cannoneers responded, but their projectiles either ripped into the ground in front of the Union guns, or passed harmlessly overhead. Rarely during this two week battle were the guns silent. Constant shelling tested the nerves of the soldiers, prompting one to remark "you would have thought that the whole world had let loose its 'dogs of war.'"
53. COLD_080210_305.JPG: The Bloody Eighth: The 8th New York Heavy Artillery joined the Army of the Potomac midway through the Overland Campaign in an effort to offset the Federal casualties suffered at the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. The regiment of 1,600 men, still fresh from serving in the defenses of Baltimore and now fighting as infantry, had seen only limited action before Cold Harbor. Starting from this vicinity on the morning of June 3, 1864, the 8th New York attacked the Confederate earthworks located 500 yards in front of you as part of Grant's assault to break Lee's lines. The 8th New York sustained the highest loss of any regiment at Cold Harbor, suffering 505 casualties, with the vast majority falling within 30 minutes. A veteran of the regiment later commented on the disastrous assault: "The army seemed to melt away like a frost in the July sun." The New York State Monuments Commission erected a monument to the 8th New York Heavy Artillery in 1909. It can be found in the Cold Harbor National Cemetery. Colonel Peter A. Porter commanded the 8th New York Heavy Artillery at Cold Harbor. Major General John Gibbon reported, "The gallant Colonel Porter... fell only a few yards from the enemy's works, surrounded by the dead of his regiment which, although new to the work, fought like veterans."
54. COLD_080210_307.JPG: Scars of Conflict: Twelve days of combat transformed this once pastoral landscape. With every shift of a line of battle, the soldiers dug new works. Reserve troops dug too, well behind the front lines. By battle's end, earthworks gouged the landscape in every direction, many times without apparent order. The earthworks in front of you are typical of the hundreds of pits that remain on the Cold Harbor battlefield. We do not known who built them, or even why; perhaps they sheltered the cannoneers of the battery above you. One thing is certain: these mounds symbolize the arrival of a new, futuristic style of warfare. The days of open-field combat were over.
55. COLD_080210_312.JPG: Federal Artillery Battery: Under the cover of night, Union artillerists left their horses at the foot of the hill behind you and dragged six rifled cannon up the slope by hand. The guns were then placed side by side inside this redoubt, with earthen mounds known as traverses, separating them for protection. The ammunition chests were carried behind the guns and placed in trenches dug for their protection. One artilleryman recalled that spare ammunition was wrapped in raincoats and placed near the guns. This hill afforded Federal gunners a commanding view of the fields stretching past the Garthright House to the Confederate lines, 500 yards to the west. As part of the bombardment preceding the Union assault of June 3, this battery hurled shot and shell at Lee's trenches. Most of Grant's ordnance either fell short or flew harmlessly over the Confederate works.
56. COLD_080210_314.JPG: Union artillery position
57. COLD_080210_317.JPG: Union artillery was located up on the right, on a rise
58. COLD_080210_320.JPG: The Battle of Gaines' Mill (1862): All the visible remains along the trail date from the June 1864, Battle of Cold Harbor, but this ground figured prominently in the Seven Days campaign of 1862 as well. On June 27, 1862, General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Confederates advanced south through here during the final stages of the battle of Gaines' Mill. Union artillery posted on a plateau half a mile to your right dropped shells among the Confederates every few seconds. After several hours of inconclusive fighting, Jackson's men pushed beyond here and helped to drive the Union army across the Chickahominy River. Another part of the Gaines' Mill battlefield, one mile west of here, is preserved by the National Park Service.
59. COLD_080210_324.JPG: A Dreadful Harvest: The grim drama enacted at Cold Harbor cost some 13,000 Federals and nearly 5,000 Confederates killed, wounded, or captured. Southern morale soared after the battle, while Grant's men were embittered by the lopsided defeat. One Union officer wrote that it was "a murderous engagement" because "we were recklessly ordered to assault the enemy's intrenchments." The gallantry of the Union soldiers at Cold Harbor is a powerful testament to their commitment. "This is a pre[tt]y hard way of living," admitted one Northerner, "but then if it will put down this wicked rebellion I am willing to live this way all summer." Vacating the Cold Harbor trenches on June 12, 1864, Grant outflanked Lee by moving to Petersburg, pinning the Confederates to the Petersburg and Richmond defenses. Lee had feared such a situation, predicting that "it will be a mere question of time."
60. COLD_080210_327.JPG: This old service station was located directly across from the Hanover County park.
61. COLD_080210_354.JPG: The old Cold Harbor intersection
Wikipedia Description: Battle of Cold Harbor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of Cold Harbor, the final battle of Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign during the American Civil War, is remembered as one of American history's bloodiest, most lopsided battles. Thousands of Union soldiers were slaughtered in a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified troops of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Grant said of the battle in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. I might say the same thing of the assault of the 22d of May, 1863, at Vicksburg. At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained."
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