casualties in getting to the same place. they maintain great hope lee would triumph. certain that lee and his men would somehow inflict a fatal blow to the north's willingness to fight. in the union army that june, soldiers saw the spires of richmond just eight miles away. union soldiers, too, gained hope from that. but recognized, too, how hard

those last eight miles would be. a pennsylvania soldier wrote of the moment, in the prospects, there's a magic influence in the expression as it passes from lip to lip. eight miles from richmond, boys. only eight miles from richmond. what treasure, what a restored peaceful happy in the united country and the a free government can pay for the precious blood that must be shed in the inexpressible sufferings that must be endured before this short distance can be accomplished. that pennsylvanian could not likely have imagined just how painful the answer to that question would be. we hope that you will join us, the staff here at fredericksburg and pospotsylvania and petersbe. one that reverberated across

america, touching families and communities across the land. it is a sad but difficult story to be sure, full of bitterness and pain, loss and sacrifice. but the hardship is also a measure of the commitment and the determination of those who are here. and we hope as you walk these fields and woods, home places, and crossroads, in the coming days and weeks, that you will constantly ask yourself this question. why? why did these men consent to such hardship? why did they do what they did? the answers to these questions are on these fields. and in the words of those who were here. we hope you will join us in our collective quest for answers,

for their questions that are essential to the health of our nation. we thank you for coming. [ applause ] next, on the civil war, author dpord an rhea discusses the significance of the battle of cold har bar, which took place in virginia 150 years ago in may and june of 1864. rhea describes the strategies of grant and robert e. lee. as well as the challenges they faced during the battle. this hour-long event took place at the cold harbor battlefield in mechanicsville, virginia. >> well, thank you very much, bob. i appreciate it. and as i told the folks i talked

with this morning, it's an honor for me to be here. there's something special about the battle field here at cold harbor. i came about my interest in the american civil war, i'm sure very much like most of you did. i got it from my father. my dad was born in 1901 in a little town on the tennessee/alabama board. it was just 35 years after the end of the civil war. most of those old men sitting around the grocery store were veterans. he grew up listening to their tall tales and talking to them about their battles. i was born in 1945. and when i grew up, when all of my friends were hearing fairy tales and stories from their parents, my dad was reading me books with names like lee's lieutenants, stuff like that. so we visited all the battlefields. we visited obviously gettysburg, chancellorsville. we didn't make any trips to cold harbor, though, because there

really wasn't all that much here. we didn't go to the north anna battlefield because it didn't even exist. the overland campaign, which is the campaign that brings grant and lee to where we are now, really wasn't the focus of that much american military history. all eyes seemed to be on the earlier battles in the war. what i'd like to do is take a couple of minutes to orient you to help you understand why it is the armies ended up down here at cold harbor, and then i'll take a little bit more detailed view of that battle itself. you can understand what happened here and why it's so special. so those of you who heard me talk this morning, if you can put up with me for four or five minutes while i repeat a little bit of background to get everybody on the same page, then i'll move on to some more detailed information. but i'd like to think back to the spring of 1864, the war had been going on for some three years. massive casualties and losses. tremendous disaffection in the north with the war.

it looked like it would go on forever. abraham lincoln, of course, is up for reelection. it's important to have battlefield victories for the north and it's important to win battles in virginia. virginia is still the preserve of robert e. lee and the storied army of northern virginia. so lincoln brings east his best general, that's going to be ulysses s. grant, the general who won all the battles in the west. and he gives grant a -- basically a two-part requirement. first, to bring organization, to bring continuity to the union war effort. and secondly, to defeat the army of northern virginia. and grant goes about making it possible to carry out that charge with a vengeance. first he puts together a program, unlike any that the war has yet seen. he realized that up to this point, battles would last a

couple of days, and then the armies would pull apart for months. grant would not let that happen anymore. the union armies were to fight them until they were destroyed. he also realized that the old goal of capturing territory didn't make sense anymore. henceforth, the goal would be the confederate armies, the goal would be to destroy them, and only by doing that could the rebellion be brought to a close. finally, grant realized that the armies in the eastern and western theaters had to move together, so the confederates couldn't shift forces from one theater to the other. in the spring of 1864 is the opening campaigns in the east, grant riding with the army of the potomac, and in the west under the direction of grant's close friend and subordinate general sherman, and these will be battles that will run day after day after day with the goal of bringing the confederate armies to their knees. in the eastern theater, in our parlance here today would be

virginia. grant comes up with a program to destroy lee's army of northern virginia. and his plan is this. he will take the union army of the potomac, the main federal force, move it directly against lee. he will outnumber lee's forces about two to one. 120,000 federal troops to about 65,000 confederate troops. at the same time, he will have an army move down the shenandoah valley southward, cutting off lee's supplies from that quarter, and he'll have another army move up the james river, attacking richmond and then moving into lee's rear. so there will be a three-pronged attack against the army of northern virginia, basically replicating that amassing of armies that grant sees for the entire nation. lee finds himself in a tough situation. the army of northern virginia is quartered just south of the rapadan river here in virginia. the massive army of the potomac

is just to the north of him, just on the other side of the river. lee is the kind of general that likes to take the initiative, but he can't. he's massively outnumbered. he's also aware of that army in the shenandoah valley and the army forming below richmond and realizes he may have to shift reinforcements from one to another. lee basically takes a waiting game. what is grant going to do. grant is going to move one way or the other. lee is uncertain. so he for fits the initiative to his opponent. this is unlike the lee that we usually see. but in this instance he has no choice. he sends his cavalry out past each ends of his lines sort of to act as a trip wire to let him know where the federals are coming from and then waits. the army was commanded by general george gordon lee, the hero of gettysburg, mead at this point was in a hot seat. he failed to destroy lee's army

at gettysburg. he was being investigated by congress. we all know how bad that can be. and so mead was in a bad situation. grant visited him and was impressed by mead, because what mead told grant was that he would step down willingly and let grant bring some of his own people from the west to run the army of the potomac. grant decided to keep mead on. he needed somebody with mead's knowledge of that army in order to run it in detail. and that, of course, is knowledge that grant didn't have. so what grant decides to do is travel with the army of the potomac, look over mead's shoulder, make sure they were fighting the way he wanted them to. but at the same time, not interfere with their operations. as i mentioned this morning, grant will keep that promise for about one day, as the armies move into the wilderness. i talked this morning generally about the relationship between the commanders of these armies. i'd like to talk a little bit

now also about some of the subordinate commanders. here on the battle field of cold harbor they're going to play a big park. grant and mead have a very bad relationship. initially mead will be hopeful it will work out, but these are two very different kinds of generals. grant likes to do the unexpected. is willing to take risks. mead is much more cautious. socially they're very different people, and their age comes from different social strata. they write home and tell their wives basically that the relationship is deteriorating. after a few days of fighting, mead basically writes home and tells his wife that he would resign from his position if he could, but honor requires him to stay on. there will be a breakdown in the union command relationship. of course, robert e. lee will have no such problems. he will be the head of the army of northern virginia and everybody knew it. who were the subordinate commanders that each of they was

generals were going to have underneath them? well, the union army will have four army corps, four infantry corps and one cavalry corps. the union's second corps will be led by hancock. i'm sure you're all familiar with him. he will not perform well against grant, though, because he's been badly injured. he was shot at gettysburg, had a wound in his thigh. he will spend a lot of the campaigns against lee here in virginia in an ambulance. the union's fifth corps will be under a gentleman by the name of warren. general warren is an unusual character, a young man. he had been an engineer, had fathomed little round top at gettysburg. he's something of an odd duck. as a matter of fact, some of his cohorts would laugh at him.

i'm sure we all know people like that. that's general warren. general warren also thought a lot of himself, and as you'll see at this campaign, often thought his plans were better than those of his superiors. the union's sixth corps will be in the hands of general sedgwick. he will be shot down by a south carolina sharpshooter at the battle of spotsylvania courthouse. the sixth corps will be beheaded by ambrose wright. horacio ambrose wright is a general that most of you probably have not heard about. and he comes to the sixth corps without much background. the union army will also have within it general ambrose burnside, who will be commanding the ninth army corps. burnside is the general who headed the army of the potomac during the battle at fredericksburg. grant is now bringing him back

to join the army of the potomac. because of burnside's former position, grant decides that burnside can't serve underneath mead, and instead will report directly to grant who will coordinate him with general mead. you can see of the command confusion that's going to take place, and some of that will become evident here at cold harbor. the union cavalry, most of the commanders that you historians would have been familiar with are now gone. john buford has died. general kill patrick has been exiled to the west. what grant decides to do is bring one of his generals from the west, general phil sheridan, eastward and put him in charge of the cavalry of the potomac. general grant will be selecting the cavalry commander who will be reporting to general mead. a very awkward command relationship. and a command relationship that won't work, because each of these are extraordinarily

strong-willed men. i suspect phil sheridan's appearance might have had to do with problems as well. writers tell us as the campaign opens, phil sheridan was about 5'5" tall, weighed about 115 pounds. bow-legged, with a pointy head, looked like his black hair had been painted on. abraham lincoln who had a good way with words explained that phil sheridan didn't have enough neck to hang him by. and also, noted that he was the only man he knew who could scratch his ankles without bending over. this is a new commander of the union cavalry for the army of the potomac. as we'll see, we'll see a lot of sheridan here at cold harbor. a fascinating figure. but also a lot of problems, particularly for general mead. what about robert e. lee and his force? the people here at cold harbor? well, lee had three infantry army corps, and one cavalry

corps. robert e. lee's first corps begins under longstreet. but longstreet will be badly wounded after the second day of fighting grant. and he will be replaced by general richard heron anderson, a south carolinan. a man who liked to smoke mirchon pipes. we'll see a lot of him at cold harbor. the confederate second corps is under richard stoddard ewell. he will be replaced by early, a former prosecutor, tctjstrong-wd erasible guy. we'll see how early performs here at cold harbor. the confederate third corps commanded by ambrose powell hill of virginia, out of culpepper county, a.p. hill, though, had been quite ill. he's now commanding the larger remnant of stonewall jackson's

old confederate first corps, as well as his former light division. a.p. hill will do very poorly. there's one thing about a.p. hill that most people haven't really focused on that i think would make an interesting story. being a storyteller and historian, i would like to write a book about it one day. a.p. hill had the unusual talent of dating women who later married union generals. and it's hard to figure out how he was able to figure this out ahead of time. i know most of you are familiar with the fact that he went out with this marcy, who, of course, married george mcclellan. what you might not know is he also went out with a young lady from baltimore, her name was emily chase, and just before the battle of gettysburg, she married general warren. now, warren and hill first came up against each other at a battle called bristol station in the fall of 1863. and this was a few months after warren had married emily chase.

when i was digging through some of warren's archives up in new york, i came across a copy of a letter that warren had sent across the line to hill, after that battle. warren had defeated hill. and he sent a note across the line that said, general a.p. hill, i have defeated your army corps, and i have married your old sweetheart. so this will give you an idea of the state of affairs as we're approaching the battles here at cold harbor. this thing is getting pretty personal. well, what brings the armies here to cold harbor? the union plan of campaign is a plan of maneuvers. grant's plan is to swing downriver from lee. lee is just below this rapid ann river. grant's going to swing the army of the potomac downriver, across, and then come back at lee. basically turning his flank. on may the 3rd, during that night, and into the early morning of may 4th, this union juggernaut crosses downriver from lee in central virginia and

comes at him from below, stops in an area called the wilderness of spotsylvania. the union forces stop there in order to get supplies, their supply wagons catch up, and also because they don't think lee can catch them in the wilderness. lee, however, realizes that he has to hold that line up at the rapadan river, 50 miles north of richmond. he feels he has to hold that line, otherwise he would be driven back to the confederate capital, and find in the entrenchments and would be unable to maneuver. so lee's goal is to maintain his flexibility and his maneuverability. what lee does is to attack grant in the wilderness. he divides his army into three parts, launches a three-pronged attack. the battle is brutal. it goes on for some two days. something like 11,000 confederates are killed, wounded and captured. something like 18,000 union soldiers are killed, wounded and captured. 30,000 americans in all.

the wilderness catches on fire. some of the most brutal scenes of the war up to that point take place. but grant at the end of those two days finds himself stymied. lee is in a powerful position in the wilderness and grant cannot break through. what does grant do? he maneuvers. he decides he will pull the army of the potomac out of the wilderness, swing south about ten miles to a place called spotsylvania courthouse. this will put him between lee's army and richmond. and as lee figures lee will have to come out from the wilderness and fight him on open ground. this is a tactical maneuver aimed at pulling lee out from his entrenchments. the army of the potomac starts to shift south. up to this point, whatever union generals had been trounced as bad as lee, had defeated grant in the wilderness, they always retreated. but grant moved south. lee gets a finger in his army in front of grant, blocks him at

spotsylvania courthouse. there is brutal fighting in places like the mule shoe, the bloody angle, that goes on for over a week in spotsylvania courthouse, almost ten days. finally grant realizes he can't break through there. grant maneuvers again. he pulls the union army out from spotsylvania courthouse. sends a finger of it out on a big looping march, hoping to endice lee to come out so he can pounce on him. that doesn't work. there's a race to the north and a river. the next defensible position, about 25 miles north of richmond. the confederate forces take up position below the north anna. lee throws his army up into a wedge-shaped formation with the tip of it touching the south bank of the north anna. he realizes it by doing this. each wing of this wedge is on high ground. a very defensible position. the union army comes across and is basically split across the

head of the union wedge, part of the union force is on this side, part on that side. lee realizes at that point he could strike either half of this divided union army with his force and have parity of numbers. but he's unable to do so, because at this point lee falls ill, has a bad diarrhea. his subordinate command has fallen apart. according to his aides, he's there at the north anna river, line in his tent saying we must strike them a blow. we must not let them pass. we must strike them a blow. but he cannot strike that blow. grant finally realizes the quandary, the trap that he has fallen into. throws up earth works. then we see the two armies sort of cheek by jowl, as one of the union aides put it, like two school boys facing each other across earth works. the confederates in a wedge-shaped formation, and the union army in a wedge-shaped

formation, larger than the confederate one facing inward. they stay there for two days. grant comes up with another idea. maneuver, of course. what he wants to do now is to pull out from the north anna river, do it overnight, before lee understands what's happening. and then swing down the river systems to the east. this would take him below the north anna. where the north anna joins with other rivers, to the pamonkey. he will aim for the pamonkey crossing. that will put him only 17 miles from richmond. it will put him downriver from lee and he can make a sharp dash to the confederate capital, and finally get the victory he's been attempting to get. well, this move goes off like clockwork. the night of may 26th, grant pulls his army under cover of darkness, bands playing, across the north anna river onto the north side and heads off to the

pamonkey crossings. lee has no idea what's going on until the next morning. then discovers the federals are gone. the union force makes its march, crosses at hanovertown, and part of it crossing at nelson's bridge. and now finds itself on the south side of the pamonkey ready to march toward richmond. a dramatic thing happens now with the cavalry. lee is now getting reports where grant is showing up but he needs to send out a force to find out where the federals are. jeff stewart, the confederate cavalry commander, has been killed. sheridan has headed south during these fights at spotsylvania courthouse, had drawn stewart after him. and stewart had been mortally wounded at the battle of yellow tavern on may the 11th. so lee puts in charge at least temporarily of his cavalry corps

a south carolina general, wade hampton, who will distinguish himself mightily. still commanding this large of a body of troops. what lee decides to do is send a force to find where the federals are. and grant and mead decide to send a force to reconnoiter to find out where the confederates on. on may 28th with the union army pouring across the pamonkey river, they go out in the direction of lee, lee has now pulled out from the north anna, and sends his cavalry force under wade hampton toward where he thinks the federals might be. the two of them, of course, encounter each other at haw's shop near salem church. this is a place that the haw's shop area, of course, in recent times has been renamed after bob creek, who introduced me here,

and it's now called studley. there's a massive cavalry fight that occupies most of may 28th. it's a dramatic and different kind of cavalry fight. the confederates commanded by wade hampton, basically get off of their horses, throw up field works, and fight dismounted. a series of attacks are launched by general sheridan. he is unable to break through. the union army is now gathering near him. but he doesn't want help from union infantry, he wants to win this battle alone. this cavalry fight goes on all day, until toward the end of the day, george armstrong custer is able to break the impasse, overruns portions of hampton's line and the confederates fall back. as nightfall comes across hanover county, it's clear that the federals have driven wade hampton's cavalry back. who won this battle of haw's

shop? if you count winning battles as who occupies the field, clearly phil sheridan had done that. but if you gauge who won or lost by whose goals were achieved, clearly wade hampton had won. hampton has still screened the army of northern virginia. sheridan had no idea where lee's main force was. and at the same time, hampton had discovered where grant's army was. in scooping up union prisoners, he had also picked up some union infantry and was able to learn grant's location. so the battle of haw's shop will really be the first meaningful engagement in the battle of mead up to our fight here at cold harbor. well, lee decides to take up a strong defensive line during that same day, may 28th, and early the next day. if you take a look at the pamonkey river, and look at richmond, the next defensible line below the pamonkey is the tatamoney creek. it's a marshy, high-banked,

small stream that runs just below the pamonkey. lee decides to take up a line there. during the last part of may 28th, all night and into the next day, the confederate army in northern virginia moves into place. well, what happens on may 29th? grant has now pulled his cavalry, phil sheridan's men, back to the rear so they can guard the burgeoning depot called white house landing. what the union generals decide to do is reconnoiter in force, basically send out the whole union army to look for lee. so horacio wright's sixth corps moves down the main road at lee station, gets down near the creek, and then swings sort of upriver. the union's second corps, hancock's boys come on down and set up position near the modern

day shelton house, which was there at the time. and the other union corps form in the rear, with general warren starting to shift down yet further downstream on the creek. so the 29th is a day of reconnoitering. big thoughts are in the mind of both the union and confederate commanders with respect to reinforcements. grant has learned that his two supporting armies, the one in the shenandoah valley and the one on richmond have just been defeated. i'm told by my virginia friends up in the shenandoah valley was defeated by a handful of vmi cadets. that might be a slight exaggeration, but they definitely were defeated. butler moving up the james river was defeated by general

beauregard. grant realizes now that his supporting armies are not going to get their job done, and decides he can draw reinforcements from them. he asks general butler, who is handling the army of the james, to send him baldy smith's 18th corps. so around the 28th of may, baldy smith starts toward the cold harbor area, basically coming in at white house landing. he's going to be coming by boat. it's quite an operation. baldy smith is going to take his 18th corps from an area called city point. in the ber muda hunter area near petersburg. come down the james river, swing around, come up the york, into the pamonkey, and finally land by boat up at white house landing. that's going to take a few days. baldy's men won't arrive until the 30th of may. lee also is looking for reinforcements. general breckenridge, who had defeated seagal in the

shenandoah valley is now freed up and is pouring down here in direction, who reaches the army of northern virginia and takes up a position on the creek. lee also positions -- i'm sorry, petitions richmond for reinforcements from that area. now general butler is out of the picture, that should free up confederate troops there. the decision is made to send him general hoke's division. so during the 29th, these various reinforcements will be moving into this area. may 30th is a big day as we move toward cold harbor. if you take a look at the map, here's the pamonkey river. below it is the creek. and then there's two roads just below the creek. one of them is called shady grove road. that's near palgreen church. down below that is another road called old church road.

what lee decides to do on the 30th of may is to launch an offensive. he realizes that part of the union army, the union 5th corps, has now crossed the creek, and is on his side of the creek. this is lee's chance to catch an undetached part of the army of the potomac. and wipe it out. basically warren is sitting down there by himself. so lee gives this job to the new head of his 2nd core, juneel hurley. he plans his second confederate corps with anderson's first corps. anderson is going to attack down the shady grove road, which is where warren's men are, and at the same time early will drop down to that old church road, and attack in the same direction, and then swing north into the underbelly of warren's soldiers. so this is going to be a two-pronged attack. well, things start off pretty well. jubel early and his men go

charging down the old church road, manage to drive the federals who are back down in that area, mainly pennsylvanians, from the pennsylvania reserves, and heavy artillerists, back to bethesda church. then decide to charge north into the underbelly of warren's main force. where, though, is anderson. anderson, it turns out, has not stepped off. he sent one division out under general picket. picket's decided that warren is too strongly entrenched and has sort of backed up and stopped. without this kind of support, early's attack is futile. it is a slaughter, headed by willis. virtually massacred by warren's men. by union artillery replacements. it's been a massive defeat for the army of northern virginia. general warren, of course, is delighted. lee is quite upset. a fight breaks out between early

and anderson. each writing letters

the head of anderson first corps starts to march down into this area. it reaches an area known as the

allison house. you'll see it on the old maps. anderson decides that he's going to launch a two-pronged reconnaissance toward old cold harbor, hopefully take the place. he wants to have hoke move down to cold harbor road. and he himself wants to go down old cold harbor. it will be a disaster because of changes made in the confederate command structure. a couple ofm)mñ days earlier, lawrence kits had come through richmond. he had brought with him a new regiment. it was called the 20th south carolina. and it was huge. had about 800 people in it. it was called by the other soldiers the 20th south carolina corps, because it was so big.

confederates weren't used to seeing regiments of this size. lawrence kits had no experience whatsoever fighting the virginia style. he had a lot of political clout, though. and was put in charge of the brigade that had formerly been headed by general kershaw, and h hannigan. that brigade was given the command to reconnoiter toward old cold harbor. well, it was a disaster. kits marches forward. he's actually riding his horse. soldiers said he looked like a knight of old. custer's men are there. of course, with their seven-shot carbines. their eyes light up when they see what's coming at them. they wait until they get close and open fire. it's a massacre. kidd is shot through the liver

and will die shortly. anderson falls back. and ultimately takes up a position to the north of where hoke's men are. between both hoke and clingman is a stream. it's marked on all the park service maps now. as bloody run. it wasn't called that back then, but it would certainly earn that name. and it divides hoke's men from anderson's men who are forming a line to their north. the -- anderson is supposed to be coordinating the efforts here. he has a confederate brigade plug that gap for a bit. but as horacio wright's federal sixth corps pulls into the place, he pulls the south carolinans out of place, so this ravine is now undefended. that's a weak spot in the confederate position. well, what happens on the union side, the union's sixth corps

under horacio wright, fills the area down below us, and the fields right to our front. as a matter of fact, directly across from us is going to be elements from general hustes' brigade. and jernl emory upton, one of the best brigade commanders in the potomac. upton has masterminded a spectacular spot at spotsylvania courthouse. north of them are going to be baldy smith's men, recently arrived from richmond, who will then fill in north of this big ravine and stream that i was talking about. now, upton's force is interesting. in recent weeks, soldiers had been brought down from the defenses of washington in baltimore. these men were called heavy artillerists, because they manned the heavy artillery around washington, baltimore, other cities. they had little combat

experience. the most they had seen was confederate prisoners. upton had been reinforced with one of those regiments. commanded by colonel kellogg. colonel kellogg was interested in having his men prove themselves, and volunteered to lead in the front line. so upton will form his brigade in four lines. the first three lines will be the heavy artillerists, and the last line will be made up of the remains of his other regiments that had been so heavily engaged in the wilderness, and of course, at the spotsylvania courthouse. at 6:00 the union force comes streaming forward. upton's men pour into the fields. i know many of you walked across on many of the tours. they take heavy losses. upton himself crouches behind trees, and according to some accounts was firing muskets and getting handed new muskets. it's unusual to see a brigadier general up this close to the

fighting. kellogg, of course, is killed. many of his men are shot down. but some of them manage to make it to the confederate works. a group of sixth corps soldiers start working their way down this wooded stream. they're under good cover. and they discover that it's undefended. and soon they find themselves basically on the flanks of both hoke and anderson's men on the other side. and so now the confederate line is broken, or infiltrated. massive fighting takes place here back and forth. huge deeds of valor. by nightfall, the union forces have managed a few break-throughs. many of the union soldiers are pressed against the opposite side of the same earth works that the confederates are working. union forces pull back somewhat in many places. the other places confederates pull back some. some like 2,200 union casualties

on june 1 at the end of the day. something like 1,000 confederate casualties. but in union headquarters, this was viewed as a massive victory. it's clear the fight is out of lee's army. if only there had been a few more hours of daylight and more troops here, the confederate army could be brought to its knees. there could have been a break-through, that would have been the end of the army of northern virginia. that's the thinking at union headquarters. well, that night both lee and the union commanders start pouring more troops down into this area. basically abandoning the line of the creek. on the union side, general hancock is ordered to march his second corps down here to cold harbor and get ready for a massive assault. a big assault to take place on june 2. the next dave. on this side, lee, of course, orders his men to shift south.

breckenridge is to shift on down below hoke. and portions of a.p. hill's third corps, two divisions of it under ma hone and wilcox are to tack on to the lower end of the confederate line. so these lines are now expanding the entire battle is shifting down here to cold harbor. grant wanted to make his big attack here. he had several reasons for wanting to do it. he realized, of course, first, that stalemate was not going to sell very well. the -- he was whetted to the idea of a mobile campaign. the last thing he wanted to do is to be stuck in earth works at cold harbor. confederate position now is anchored on a -- toward the creek. and down toward the river. really no way to flank lee's position. the army of northern virginia as grant saw it was now -- had been reinforced somewhat. but there are a lot more

reinforcements that can come. now is the time to make an attack before lee could reinforce his lines. finally, richmond was only seven or eight miles to the rear. so if he could break through the confederate works, he could take richmond. the confederate army would have to fall back on the river and there's no better situation than to have the enemy with a river to his back. so this looked like a perfect time to launch an assault. politically it was a good time as well. the nominating convention in baltimore was going to convene in the next week or so. what better presence for president abraham lincoln than the final demise of the army. the soldiers with the army of the potomac had fought in these fields during the seven days campaign, and of course, they knew that the -- this was no place to be with the fevers, and the disease, and the suffering of summer. so grant decides now is the time to make an attack.

now is the time to break through the army of northern virginia. let's do it the next day. well, it didn't happen the next day. as often happens in these things, plans went awry. general hancock's men marched slower than expected. there were problems with guides and directions and roads that didn't quite pan out the way the leaders thought they would. hancock's men weren't into position until near the end. day. same problem with other soldiers marching down into this area. so grant decided he would launch this big attack the next day, june 3rd, at first light. well, that was all that robert e. lee needed to prepare. by now, the confederate forces were in place. they were able to dig in. and they built here at cold harbor some of the most effective earth works that they built during the entire war. they had time to not only sight their line along high ground. they dug the entrenchments.

they threw dirt up in front of the entrenchments that they had built. they cleared fields with fire. they learned in the previous battles how to throw obstacles in front of the earth works to slow an attacking force. some of lee's engineers went in front of the lines, and actually were able to drive stakes into the ground at places to mark off the yardage so the artillery would know exactly how to set the fuses on their shells. basically making this cold harbor line into an impenetrable p bastion. grant, however, was still determined to make the attack. his judgment, this was the time, this was the place. there was no other place. and if he didn't attack now, there would be a stalemate. he sent out orders to gem mead. and general mead sent out orders to his corps commander. unfortunately, relations between mead and grant had deteriorated

at this point badly. mead viewed grant as having very little military talent. viewed him as a man who threw men against earth works, with often very little purpose. this was not his style of warfare. grant, i might say, was also becoming very disaffected with mead whom he considered too cautious. at this stage of the war the men weren't even traveling together. they rode separately and took their headquarters up in separate places. this was like a disfunctional family. it one the soldiers who will pay for this disfunction. mead does very little to prepare for the assault. there are little orders set out how the attack is to take place. very little reconnoitering. many stories have come down about cold harbor. one of the stories that i'm sure most of you have heard is union troops who were attacking these earth works for the past several

weeks knew that they were probably going to get killed. and men would write their names on paper and pin it to their jackets, so that their bodies could be identified. i doubt that that really happened here at cold harbor. i've checked through the contemporary sources, the letters from the men, and none of them mentioned that. the only place that that story is mentioned is by horace porter, who is one of grant's aides and he wrote it in a memoir that he produced many years after the war, that is filled with literary inventions. i suspect that is one of his many literary inventions. it's true that soldiers of the army of the potomac had done that before in earlier battles. this would be in november of 1863. but there's no evidence that it actually happened here at cold harbor. but everybody knew it was going to be a fierce and terrible day. 4:30 a.m., the signal gun goes

off, and this huge union huge u lith heaves forward. or parts of it do. that's the sad thing about the battle of cold harbor. down on the lower end of the battlefield, general hancock's second corps punches forward. across from them at one spot, they make a breakthrough in a salient in the federal line where general breckenridge is positioned. but lee has a lot of reserves. one myth is that lee did not have reserves, that his line was thin. that's not true. some parts of the confederate line this entire divisions ab t behind them and that was the position on the lower end of the battlefield where hancock made his attack. the reserves pour in, drive hancock's men out and the union's second core find themselves in an untenable position. wounded men across the fields, men who are not wounded, but

can't get to their lines, burrowing behind besides, all of the horrors of cold harbor are taking place along hancock's line, south of where we are right now. in this area, where the union's sixth core, horatio wright's men was to attack. very little happened. as a matter of fact, one of the confederate generals where we are right now, wrote that he had no idea an attack was even being made. the reason is, wright's men had attacked this same position on june 1. they knew what they were facing and they now knew the confederates had two more days to get for them. they moved forward a short distance and started digging. and the accounts of the soldiers who fought on this part of the battlefield reflect that. to our north, where the union 18th core would be, attacked. they came forward and baldy smith would send his men forward

in columns. they'd go forward in columns down the next ravine over. it's called the middle ravine on the park services map. they figured that way, he would have enough mass to punch through the confederate line. well, good idea, but it wouldn't work this time, because the confederate first corps had time to strengthen. they realized these ways they may be broken through, so the confederate engineers had positions artillery along those ravines and had dug entrenchments there, so that basically this union column would be feeding into what military men call a reentrant angle, what i like to call a pencil sharpener. a pencil going in and getting ground to pieces. that's what happened to baldy smith's 18th core. men were slaughtered.

within a short time, the 18th core was stymied. men crawling behind the bodies of dead men. the fields were basically total killing fields. evander law, one of the confederate generals in that part of the field later wrote those famous words, it's not war, it's murder. and up in that part of the field, it looked like that. the fifth and ninth core on the way end of the battlefield did very little until a few hours had passed and launched another assault. later in the afternoon will try yet once again.la= so this massive attack at cold harbor is really a disjointed set of attacks by disparate union army cores, very little support from each other, no defined objective except to break through somewhere. a very bad idea and definitely very poorly executed. >> i have been over these battlefields and done walks on these battlefields with men who

have actually led men in battle. and had the honor one time to do a staff ride with general francs. we talked about told harbor. i asked, what do you think of grant's decision to attack at cold harbor and the way it was executed, and the answer i've gotten from people much more experienced in this than myself, is that they respect general grant's decision, that this was the time to make the attack. that's the kind of hard decision that an army commander or supreme commander has to make president the politics of it, and the situation of the armys, the expectation of perhaps more confederate reinforcements, made this a rational or reasonable time to make that kind of assault, and they don't fault grant for having decided to do what he did here. what they do fault, though, is the total breakdown in command. obviously, meed as army commander was responsible for making sure that the coordination was there, that the supports were there, the field

was rackon identitiered, he doesn't do that. and grant had an obligation to do that. so there's plenty of fault to go around. grant later wrote in this attack at cold harbor was an attack that he wished had never been made. i find it interesting that he wrote that in the passive voice. he didn't say i wished i had never made it. he said i wished it was an attack that hadn't been made. i wonder if that was a side swipe on his part at general meed. at any event, by noon, grant called off the attack, and that was the end of the famous attack at cold harbor. in later years, the historians have written about the battle and talked about the casualties that took place here, and you see all sorts of inflated

stories about the attack on cold harbor, the biggest assault, produced 7,000 union casualties in ten minutes, or 15,000 casualties in five minutes, you'll see everything. when i i was working on my book on cold harbor, i spent a lot of time investigating the casualties that took place. they were terrible, but what were they really? when you go through the actual casualty reports from the units engaged, the casualties are about half of what's generally claimed. somewhere in the range of 3,500 during that morning set of assaults. in other words, over a period of several hours. so the brutal attack at cold harbor, which sort of goes down in civil war lore as one of the worst of the assaults ranks somewhere around sixth or seventh worst among the assaults of the civil war. as far as people, as far as casualties. bad it was, but it was not the

absolute catastrophe that it's often painted up to be. as a matter of fact, the losses in that assault were in many ways no worse and in some cases no worse than assaults launched in the wilderness and the courthouse. over the next day or two, the armies jockeyed for positions. the fields we're looking at now, were scenes of horror. wounded men, unwounded men lying there but unable to get food or water. sharpshooters on each side killing anything that moved, any body that moved. there are stories of men going out at night from the lines, trying to bring water to the injured, trying to pull comrades back, they too would be shot at. this was a killing ground. a horror show. it was hot and it was one of those -- one of the worst scenes

you could imagine in the american civil war. there were scenes of bravery and there's several accounts of men who managed to work their way out into the field and drag their friends back. some of the injured colonels were dragged back as well. two days, three days, june 5th, after the big assault had taken place, general hancock went to general meed and asked if there could be some sort of a flag of truce so that wounded men could be brought back in from his portion of the line. his local commanders had been asking for that. this, of course, was relayed to grant. grant made the request of lee, and then for the next two days, up until june 7th, lee and grant bicker back and forth about exactly how the truce will be done, whether it can be local or generalized. it takes a long time for messages to go back and forth between the lines and not until

june 7th, at the end of the day, is a truce declared and for a few hours, the soldiers from each army come into these feeies that we're in today and bring back thew;v8x bodies. because there's very few wounded left alive. hard to tell how many, but by many accounts, there's five or six, and the rest are all now bodies. if we were here that day, we'd see soldiers from each side trading tobacco and coffee. there are accounts of the union soldiers moving to the confederate lines, talking with them, shaking hands with them. it's as though this entire madness had stopped for a few hours. darkness comes on, the truce is called off. shots are fired, and that's the end of the truce at cold harbor. now these men who just a few minutes before were talking with each other, are trying to kill each other again. the armies stay here at cold

harbor until june 13th. so they'll be here for another week. during that time, very few wounded men are brought in. during that time there's some movement, some jackieing, some assaults. i'd tell you what happened during those days, but i haven't quite finished my next book, which covers those battles, so i don't want to give away all the details. the big thing is this, though, grant realizes now, as he had in north anna, that he cannot break through here at cold harbor. and so he does what he has always done, and that is, he decide to maneuver. and he comes up with a good idea. he's going to have cavalry under phil sheridan make a raid up to the north. cut off some of the rail lines, maybe even move up into the shen an doea valley, take places like lynchburg and cut off the james river canal. he's then going to take the army

of the potomac, pull it out of cold harbor, swing it south, cross the james, and then that army, in combination with butler's army and the 18th corps can take petersburg, cut the supply line to the army in northern virginia, and finally defeat lee. the union plan works like clock work. sheridan heads off on his raid. it will end disastrously at the battle of torrian station, but it serves its purpose for the time. and on the morning of the 13th of june, lee and his men look across and discover that the union earth works are empty. grant once again has managed to pull his army away without lee figuring out what had happened. the union army swings south, down to the james river. grant intends to cross. but lee does not understand what grant means to do. lee thinks that what grant might be preparing to do is to swing

back toward richmond north of the james river. so lee stays here at cold harbor, sends some of his soldiers to the south, but doesn't do a major shift, because, again, he's uncertain as to what grant will do. well, as you civil war historians know, by june 15th, union forces are attacking at petersburg. lee is now alerted to what's going on. confederates managed to reach the town in time. there's a vigorous defense, and the war will basically devolve into a siege with many big battles, but still a siege that will last for the next ten months. i'm often asked, well, who is it that won this battle at cold harbor? and that won this big campaign between grant and lee? and i have to say, if you look at this, in terms of individual battles. lee had the upper hand in the wilderness. spotsl vainia courthouse and

here at cold harbor, because each place he was able to deflect grant. but if you look at it as a unified campaign, i'd have to say grant was the winner. grant's goal was to neutralize lee's army in virginia, and he did just that. lee would be locked into the entrenchment at petersburg and richmond and be neutralized as an effective force in the war. lee's goal had been to hold his line at the rap dan river and after these series of battles, he was driven back into richmond. so he too realized he had failed in his goal. casualties were horrendous. 33,000 confederates during this campaign, were captured, killed, or wounded. something like 55,000 union soldiers killed, captured, or wounded. 88,000 americans all-told in something like 42, 43 days of

fighting and maneuver. if you are to ask, well, who lost the most, obviously the union forces lost more men, but they were the ones generally who were on the offensive. they were launching the attacks. if you were to ask, which army lost the highest percentage of men, then the conclusion would be reversed. lee started the campaign with about 65,000. he lost slightly more than 50% of the men that he had started with. grant, of course starting with 120,000, lost a little bit less than 50% of the men that he had started with, so in that sense, grant wins the numbers game, depends again on how you count it. well, i've enjoyed chatting with you today. i've sure i've said 50 things that will cause a lot of debate and some of you may have questions as well. i believe i've been asked to talk to you for a little while, sort of like king cannut who was supposed to hold back the tides, i'm supposed to keep you happy

enough until the sun goes down and the lighting of the candles to be carried on the battlefield. i'd be glad to take a question or two, or whatever you'd like to do, david? what's that? move to the next? okay, well, i guess i've done my job. so thank you very much, i appreciate it. [ applause ] >> next, on the civil war, historians and officials from the national park service commemorate the conclusion of the overland campaign, which took place in virginia, 150 years ago in may and june of 1864. in keynote remarks, james robertson describes ulysses desire to detroit the confederacy which culminated at cold harbor. he said robert e. lee earned his greatest and final victory of the war, but it