Cold Harbor
Second Cold Harbor
Civil War in Virginia

American Civil War
May 31-June 12, 1864

On May 31, Sheridan's cavalry seized the vital crossroads of Old Cold Harbor.

Early on June 1, relying heavily on their new repeating carbines and shallow entrenchments, Sheridan's troopers threw back an attack by Confederate infantry.

Confederate reinforcements arrived from Richmond and from the Totopotomoy Creek lines. Late on June 1, the Union VI and XVIII Corps reached Cold Harbor and assaulted the Confederate works with some success.

By June 2, both armies were on the field, forming on a seven-mile front that extended from Bethesda Church to the Chickahominy River.

At dawn June 3, the II and XVIII Corps, followed later by the IX Corps, assaulted along the Bethesda Church-Cold Harbor line and were slaughtered at all points. Grant commented in his memoirs that this was the only attack he wished he had never ordered.

The armies confronted each other on these lines until the night of June 12, when Grant again advanced by his left flank, marching to James River.

On June 14, the II Corps was ferried across the river at Wilcox's Landing by transports.

On June 15, the rest of the army began crossing on a 2,200-foot long pontoon bridge at Weyanoke. Abandoning the well-defended approaches to Richmond, Grant sought to shift his army quickly south of the river to threaten Petersburg.

Result(s): Confederate victory

Location: Hanover County

Campaign: Grant's Overland Campaign (May-June 1864) next battle in campaign previous battle in campaign

Date(s): May 31-June 12, 1864

Principal Commanders: Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and Major General George G. Meade [US]; General Robert E. Lee [CS]

Forces Engaged: 170,000 total (US 108,000; CS 62,000)

Estimated Casualties: 15,500 total (US 13,000; CS 2,500)


Cold Harbor:
Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864

In his gripping fourth volume on the spring 1864 Overland campaign--which pitted Ulysses S. Grant against Robert E. Lee for the first time in the Civil War--Gordon Rhea vividly re-creates the battles and maneuvers from the North Anna stalemate through the Cold Harbor offensive. Once again Rhea's tenacious research elicits stunning new facts from the records of a phase oddly ignored or mythologized by historians. The Cold Harbor of these pages differs sharply from the Cold Harbor of popular lore.

We see Grant, in one of his most brilliant moves, pull his army across the North Anna River and steal a march on Lee. In response, Lee sets up a strong defensive line along Totopotomoy Creek, and the battles spark across woods and fields northeast of Richmond. Their back to the Chickahominy River and on their last legs, the rebel troops defiantly face an army-wide assault ordered by Grant that extends over three days.

Rhea gives a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle that left seven thousand Union casualties and only fifteen hundred Confederate dead or wounded. Here, Grant is not a callous butcher, and Lee does not wage a perfect fight. Every imaginable primary source has been exhausted to unravel the strategies, mistakes, gambles, and problems with subordinates that preoccupied two exquisitely matched minds.

In COLD HARBOR, Rhea separates fact from fiction in a charged, evocative narrative. He leaves readers under a moonless sky, Grant pondering the eastward course of the James River fifteen miles south of the encamped armies.

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