The Battle of Cold Harbor
Grant’s maneuvers were blocked once more by Lee’s army, which constructed a 7-mile (11-km)
line of fieldworks—the most daunting yet seen in the Overland Campaign—near the junction at Cold
Harbor. The only way to break through that line—so Grant thought—was to launch one massive assault.
GRANT, SHERMAN, AND TOTAL WAR 1864the crossroads as Lee’s divisions began
approaching from the north. Grant’s
soldiers were marching along a parallel
track, but some of
them had become
lost and were slow
coming up.
Although Lee’s
line stretched
nearly 7 miles
(11km), from
Totopotomoy Creek in the north to the
banks of the Chickahominy, the
leading elements managed to block the
road to Richmond. Lee’s veterans dug
in where they halted. Grant’s men
aligned opposite, and as evening fell
the Union commander hurled them atT
he dusty little hamlet of Cold
Harbor sat in country so flat that
only ravines cut by sluggish
streams provided relief. Five roads
radiated from the settlement like
wheel spokes, including two to the
southwest, which led over bridges
across the Chickahominy River to
Richmond, 8 miles (13km) away.
On June 1, 1864, this hamlet saw
cavalry units fighting for its possession.
As the afternoon wore on, infantry
began arriving. Troopers in blue heldBEFORE
In the wake of Ulysses S. Grant’s masterly
disengagement from the North Anna River
❮❮ 248–49, both armies continued their
running battle, sparring southeastward.
HAW’S SHOP
General Robert E. Lee took up a strong position
on the south bank of Totopotomoy Creek, with
Pamunkey River to the north and Chickahominy
River to the south. On May 28 he sent a cavalry
reconnaissance eastward to test Grant’s
position. His men met Union horsemen near
Haw’s Shop, a local forge, and the resulting
five-hour battle became one of the bloodiest
cavalry engagements of the entire war.
BETHESDA CHURCH
On May 30 Grant pushed across Totopotomoy
Creek, seeking Lee’s right flank. The infantry of
both armies clashed at Bethesda Church.
Farther east, cavalry units fought at Old Church,
but the Confederate horsemen fell back on a
crossroads called Cold Harbor. Grant, believing
Lee’s lines unbreakable, was also casting an eye
on Cold Harbor. A major battle was shaping up.
the Southern line. “Aim low and aim
well,” one Confederate general advised
his troops. For a few minutes, the
Confederate lines blazed with rifle fire.
Everywhere the Yankees fell back,
except where one division nearly
opened a breach, using a ravine for
cover. This near-breakthrough
impressed Grant,
who thought one
big push might
divide the Army of
Northern Virginia.
He therefore
ordered a huge
attack for June 2,
but not all the Union troops were in
place, so he reluctantly postponed to
the following morning.
That night Lee’s engineers
strengthened their lines, shoring up
weak spots and designing a broad
zigzag pattern that created convergingThe estimated number of
Union soldiers who fell
within the first hour of the charge at Cold
Harbor on June 3, 1864—over one-quarter
of the 25,000 men sent to attack the
Confederate fieldworks that morning.6,500
TECHNOLOGYSpending nearly two weeks—from June 1
to June 12, 1864—in flat open fields,
swept by artillery and sniper fire, soldiers
of both armies dug a complex maze of
trenches around the road junction at
Cold Harbor. Behind their parapets,
troops constructed bombproof shelters to
sleep in and excavated holes to build
fires. They filled gabions (open-ended
wickerwork cages) with dirt for shock
absorption—a technique they would
use again at Petersburg (pictured).
Rain turned the trenches into rivers, and
in the sun, blankets stretched between
bayoneted rifles screened the men.TRENCH WARFARE
The Battle of Cold Harbor
This postwar chromolithograph, issued by the firm
Kurz and Allison, depicts the gruesome battle in the
stylized, romantic vein popular in the 1880s.