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:
- COLD_120608_02.JPG: Killing Fields
"The men bent down as they pushed forward, as if trying ... to breast a tempest, and the files of men went down like rows of blocks or bricks pushed over by striking against each other."
-- John L. Piper, 12th New Hampshire Infantry
At first light on June 3, 1864, over half of the Army of the Potomac rushed forward across a wide front. Theirs was a high stakes gamble. The risk: a frontal attack against well-fortified Confederate defenders. The reward: the prospect of driving Robert E. Lee's army into the Chickahominy River. On the Confederate and your right, a brief Union breakthrough produced hand-to-hand fighting. In the center, the attackers barely left the cover of their trees. On the left, brave Federal soldiers charged across open ground, only to fall by the hundreds. The Confederate line stood unbroken and remained intact until June 12, when the Union army slipped away. Cold Harbor produced numbing casualty figures: 13,000 for the Federals and approximately 5,000 for the Confederates during the two weeks of combat.
- COLD_120608_06.JPG: Cold Harbor
1864 Overland Campaign
(left panel)
Visiting Richmond National Battlefield Park
The concentration of Civil War resources found in the Richmond area is unparalleled. The National Park Service manages 13 sites, giving visitors an opportunity to examine the battlefield landscapes, to hear the stories of the combatants and civilian residents, and to understand the complex reasons why Richmond came to symbolize the heart and soul of the Confederacy.
Regulations
This is a partial list of park regulations. Site is open sunrise to sunset. Report suspicious activities to any park employee or call 804-795-5018. In emergencies call 911.
Alcoholic beverages are prohibited.
All natural and cultural resources are protected by law.
Relic hunting is prohibited. Possession of a metal detector in the park is illegal.
Hunting, trapping, feeding, or otherwise disturbing wildlife is prohibited.
Weapons are prohibited inside all park buildings.
Pets must be on a leash.
Recreation activities like kite-flying, ball-playing, and frisbee throwing are prohibited.
Motor vehicles and bicycles must remain on established roads.
(center panel)
1864 Overland Campaign:
The fourth spring of the war began when Union armies launched a series of offensives across unconquered portions of the South. The action in Virginia included three separate campaigns, each defined by aggressive advances from Union commanders. While smaller armies fought in the Shenandoah Valley and around the Bermuda Hundred region south of Richmond, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent the largest Northern army against Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederates. The ensuing series of battles is known today as the Overland Campaign.
Costly stalemates at the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania delayed Grant's progress. Confederates next blocked his southward drive at the North Anna River, and then along Totopotomoy Creek at the end of May 1864. Finally the armies collided at Cold Harbor, just eight miles from Richmond. There Grant's headlong assaults against Lee's entrenchments on June 1 and June 3 failed. Despite enormous losses, the Union army retained the initiative and marched south to Petersburg, where Grant began the long process of cutting Richmond's supply lines.
Wilderness May 5-6
Two days of close-quarters action in the thick woods west of Fredericksburg produced nearly 30,000 casualties and inaugurated a grueling campaign that saw the armies sweep across most of central Virginia.
Spotsylvania May 8-21
Grant ignored the indecisive results of the Wilderness and pressed southward toward more open ground. The Confederate army blocked him on May 8. For two weeks over 150,000 men fought for an advantage. The terrible combat at the Bloody Angle on May 12 defined this period and reenforced the campaign's grim tone set at the Wilderness the week before.
North Anna River May 23-26
When the Union army moved away from Spotsylvania, Confederate infantry fell back to the next defensible ground, south of the North Anna River. Actions on May 23 and 24 weakened Grant's momentum and forced him to look toward another movement to continue his campaign.
Totopotomoy Creek May 28-30
Hard marching and determination took the Union army away from North Anna and closer to Richmond. Just a dozen miles from the city, this creek saw the next collision of the armies. Aggressive probes up and down the creek valley ignited many small battles and proved to General Grant that the Confederates again blocked his direct path to Richmond.
Cold Harbor May31-June 12
The armies revisited ground first contested during McClellan's 1862 campaign. This time the lines extended for nearly seven miles, with action beginning at the Old Cold Harbor crossroads and extending north and south from there. A major attack by the Federal army on June 1 partly succeeded; the larger follow-up attack on June 3 failed badly. The soldiers endured nine more days of sniping and misery in the entrenchments before both armies marched south toward Petersburg, ending the "overland" portion of the 1864 campaign.
(right panel)
Visiting Cold Harbor
Civil War field fortifications at Cold Harbor are some of the best examples to be found anywhere in the United States. The 1864 battle here involved much more than just entrenching, but the visual scars on this 21st-century landscape are compelling reminders of what happened here in the 1800s.
The primary walking trail is one mile long and takes visitors through the heart of the June 1 battlefield. The many signs along the route emphasize that critical fight. A longer spur trail, stretching more than two miles, also is available. The trails follow long stretches of original Union and Confederate entrenchments. Both trails eventually loop back to the parking lot at the visitor center.
- COLD_120608_11.JPG: 1864 Overland Campaign:
The fourth spring of the war began when Union armies launched a series of offensives across unconquered portions of the South. The action in Virginia included three separate campaigns, each defined by aggressive advances from Union commanders. While smaller armies fought in the Shenandoah Valley and around the Bermuda Hundred region south of Richmond, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent the largest Northern army against Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederates. The ensuing series of battles is known today as the Overland Campaign.
Costly stalemates at the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania delayed Grant's progress. Confederates next blocked his southward drive at the North Anna River, and then along Totopotomoy Creek at the end of May 1864. Finally the armies collided at Cold Harbor, just eight miles from Richmond. There Grant's headlong assaults against Lee's entrenchments on June 1 and June 3 failed. Despite enormous losses, the Union army retained the initiative and marched south to Petersburg, where Grant began the long process of cutting Richmond's supply lines.
Wilderness May 5-6
Two days of close-quarters action in the thick woods west of Fredericksburg produced nearly 30,000 casualties and inaugurated a grueling campaign that saw the armies sweep across most of central Virginia.
Spotsylvania May 8-21
Grant ignored the indecisive results of the Wilderness and pressed southward toward more open ground. The Confederate army blocked him on May 8. For two weeks over 150,000 men fought for an advantage. The terrible combat at the Bloody Angle on May 12 defined this period and reenforced the campaign's grim tone set at the Wilderness the week before.
North Anna River May 23-26
When the Union army moved away from Spotsylvania, Confederate infantry fell back to the next defensible ground, south of the North Anna River. Actions on May 23 and 24 weakened Grant's momentum and forced him to look toward another movement to continue his campaign.
Totopotomoy Creek May 28-30
Hard marching and determination took the Union army away from North Anna and closer to Richmond. Just a dozen miles from the city, this creek saw the next collision of the armies. Aggressive probes up and down the creek valley ignited many small battles and proved to General Grant that the Confederates again blocked his direct path to Richmond.
Cold Harbor May31-June 12
The armies revisited ground first contested during McClellan's 1862 campaign. This time the lines extended for nearly seven miles, with action beginning at the Old Cold Harbor crossroads and extending north and south from there. A major attack by the Federal army on June 1 partly succeeded; the larger follow-up attack on June 3 failed badly. The soldiers endured nine more days of sniping and misery in the entrenchments before both armies marched south toward Petersburg, ending the "overland" portion of the 1864 campaign.
- COLD_120608_15.JPG: Read's Batallion
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.
"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."
-- Lt. Eli Nichols, 8th New York Heavy Artillery
"It was a country generally flat, with many small clearings, & thin woods, & scattered pines. No long ranges, but favorable to cross fires & smooth bore richochet firing–& I put in position every gun I had."
-- Brig. Gen. E. Porter Alexander, Chief of Artillery, First Corps
Major John Postell Williamson Read, formerly Chief of Police for Savannah, Georgia, commanded nearly 400 officers and men and 16 guns at Cold Harbor. The unit suffered only seven casualties.
- COLD_120608_23.JPG: Battle of Cold Harbor
The Confederate Main Line
Here Longstreet's Corps, with Breckinridge and A.P. Hill's Corps to the southward, repulsed on June 3, 1864, fourteen assaults from the East against the confederate main line. The federal losses, about 7000, were the heaviest ever sustained in America in so brief an action.
Placed by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.
- 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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