Grant's Overland Campaign: May-June 1864 :
      Cold Harbor, Virginia (VA062) , Hanover County, May 31-June 12, 1864

Richard J. Sommers

The forces of US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and CS General Robert E. Lee had fought almost incessantly from May 5 to May 24. After the battle of the North Anna, Grant resumed his characteristic strategic advance around the Confederate right. Such advances assured him of uninterrupted supplies up Virginia's tidal rivers and, more important, allowed him to preserve the strategic initiative and forge farther into Virginia.

Grant began crossing the Pamunkey River on May 27, and during the rest of that month, he struck westward and southwestward through Hanover County. Fighting flared at Haw's Shop, Totopotomoy Creek, Bethesda Church, and Matadequin Creek. On May 31 US Major General Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry corps drove the southern horsemen, plus a feeble foot brigade, from the crucial Old Cold Harbor crossroads.

On the roads radiating from that point, Grant could threaten not only the Confederate army to the northwest but Richmond itself, just ten miles to the southwest beyond the Chickahominy. He could also cover his new depot at White House on the Pamunkey and prevent the interception of his reinforcements.

Those reinforcements, nine Army of the James brigades under US Major General William F. Smith of the XVIII Corps, sailed down the James from Bermuda Hundred, then up the York and Pamunkey to White House, where they landed on May 30 and 31. One brigade remained there, and the others, 10,000 strong, marched toward Grant. Misworded orders led them astray up the Pamunkey instead of directly to Sheridan. On discovering the error, they trudged south over narrow, dusty roads into Old Cold Harbor, exhausted by ten extra miles of marching. Still, by 3:00 p.m. on June 1 they began reaching the front.

Throughout May, Lee too had requested reinforcements. Seven of his own brigades and CS Major General John C. Breckinridge's two Shenandoah Valley brigades joined him in the middle of May. Now that he was near Richmond, he asked for more troops from CS General P. G. T. Beauregard's army blocking the Army of the James at Bermuda Hundred. Lee's appeals, initially unproductive, turned to demands as he learned of Smith's approach. Minutes before he was ordered by Richmond to act, Beauregard dispatched CS Major General Robert F. Hoke's Division to Lee.

Hoke's van reached Old Cold Harbor on May 31 but could not save it from the subsequent Federal attack. By the next day his division was massed to the west. To the northwest, CS Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early's small Second Corps on the right of Lee's main line exchanged places with CS Lieutenant General Richard H. Anderson's larger First Corps in the center. Once on the right, Anderson advanced southeastward and eastward against Old Cold Harbor with CS Major General Joseph B. Kershaw's and Hoke's divisions on June 1.

Intelligence reports of the danger led Sheridan to withdraw from Old Cold Harbor. However, US Major General George Gordon Meade, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, ordered him to return and hold the intersection at all costs. Sheridan's dismounted cavalry poured devastating fire from their repeating carbines into the Confederate attackers. Kershaw's inexperienced van broke and fled, sweeping his veterans off too. Even worse, the typically uncooperative Hoke remained inactive. Anderson's great counterattack failed totally, and he then withdrew onto a north-south ridge between Old and New Cold Harbor and hastily began fortifying.

The tactical initiative reverted to the Federals. At about 10:00 a.m. US Major General Horatio G. Wright's VI Corps from the Union far right replaced Sheridan's troopers at Old Cold Harbor. Six hours later Smith's arriving XVIII Corps deployed to Wright's right.

Although the hour was late, Meade attacked. Two divisions each from Wright's and Smith's corps struck west from Old Cold Harbor at 6:00 p.m. They drove skirmishers from a wood line, then continued over the broad open slope up to Anderson's breastworks. Heavy fire stopped the outer two divisions, but the two center divisions poured up a ravine and penetrated the line between Hoke's left and Kershaw's right, routing two Confederate brigades. Before the Federals could exploit the breakthrough, however, Anderson brought up three brigades and sealed the penetration.

On June 1 Grant thus secured Old Cold Harbor, bowed in Anderson's right, and captured 750 prisoners. But he lost 2,800 men and failed to turn or overrun Lee's right. Achieving those larger objectives would require further fighting.

Both commanders deemed it necessary to continue fighting. Lee might have retired across the Chickahominy, but with characteristic audacity he risked battle with that deep, swampy river behind him in order to cover his railroads. Accordingly, on June 2 he moved Breckinridge and two divisions of CS Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill's Third Corps to connect Hoke's right to the Chickahominy Swamp. In taking this position, Breckinridge drove Union outposts off Turkey Hill, part of the 1862 battlefield of Gaines' Mill.

Those outposts belonged to US Major General Winfield Scott Hancock's II Corps, which had marched from Meade's right to the left overnight on June 1-2. Grant believed that massing three corps at Old Cold Harbor would provide enough punch to break Anderson's line. Once broken, the Confederates might well be driven into the Chickahominy.

However, Hancock's night march, like so many in the Civil War, went astray. The II Corps took ten hours to march twelve miles, and when it finally reached Old Cold Harbor, Hancock concluded that his men were too exhausted to attack. Meade and Grant reluctantly acquiesced.

Except for skirmishing at Turkey Hill, the only action on June 2 occurred to the north at Bethesda Church, where Early had failed to turn the Federal left, US Major General Gouverneur K. Warren's V Corps, on May 30. As the armies sidled southward, the Union right was resting there by June 2. It too withstood Early's assault. After initially overrunning part of US Major General Ambrose E. Burnside's IX Corps, Early was repulsed by Burnside's and Warren's main line.

Throughout that day and into the night the armies prepared to renew the battle. The Confederates continued to improve their field fortifications, which ran from Turkey Hill northwest along a low ridge, whose gentle, open, east-facing slope offered excellent fields of fire. The Federals also prepared: the generals deployed troops, and the soldiers pinned on name tags for identification if they were killed.

Many of the Union soldiers were killed when fighting resumed at 4:30 a.m. on June 3. Hancock, Wright, and Smith attacked simultaneously, but their advance was soon fragmented. From Hancock's left, US Brigadier General Francis C. Barlow's division drove the Confederate pickets from a wood line and penetrated a swampy, poorly defended portion of Breckinridge's sector. Barlow, however, lacked support, and Hill soon repelled him.

No other Federals fared even that well. To Barlow's right US Brigadier General John Gibbon's division became mired in a swamp and was bloodily repulsed. In the center Wright found that his June 1 penetration now exposed him to shattering crossfire. Farther north most of Smith's troops, under US Brigadier General John H. Martindale, were massed in a ravine leading into Anderson's line. The ravine proved a slaughter pen, raked by devastating crossfire.

Within barely half an hour all three Union corps were repulsed, with the staggering loss of 7,000 men. The survivors entrenched as near the front as they dared, often fifty yards or less from Lee's lines. Throughout the day sharpshooting and shelling took their toll.

However, the charge and the battle of Cold Harbor were over. For another nine days the armies remained in place, and many of the wounded remained between the lines unattended, suffering in the sweltering heat. When Grant, usually a humane commander, finally brought himself to request a truce on June 7, most of those wounded had died. Their war was over, but the Civil War continued. In mid-June both armies departed: the cavalry to Trevilian Station, Breckinridge and Early to Lynchburg and the Shenandoah Valley, and the main bodies to Petersburg.

Approximately 117,000 Federals and 60,000 Confederates participated in operations from May 31 to June 3. Some 13,000 Union troops and perhaps 5,000 southerners were casualties. More than half of the Union losses (versus 1,200 Confederates) occurred that final morning. However, thousands more soldiers fought and fell from Haw's Shop to Bethesda Church. The final onslaught was just one part of the overall operation in Hanover County, but it was not characteristic of those operations or of Grant's generalship. Grant did not usually fight battles that way. Even after the war he reflected, "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made."

In a broader sense, the overall operations at this time carried the Federals more deeply into Virginia. When their southward strategic drive from Culpeper to the Chickahominy was finally checked at Cold Harbor, Grant, undaunted, sought a new route to Richmond: from the south via its rail center, Petersburg. By late June the mobile war of spring would change to the stagnant siege of summer as Grant, who characteristically learned from experience, evolved new tactics to match his new strategy.

These Federal operations denied Lee the initiative and burdened him with the constricting strategic imperative of closely defending Richmond and Petersburg. Yet in this defense the masterful Virginian remained dangerous, as he had clearly demonstrated at Cold Harbor, his last great victory in the field.

Estimated Casualties: 13,000 US, 5,000 CS

Cold Harbor Battlefield, a unit of the Richmond National Battlefield Park, is northeast of Richmond near Route 156 and includes 149 acres of the historic battlefield.