condition but still defyant and ever dangerous. each side waiting for the inevitable resumption of battle. but 1864 would be different because of the entrance on the scene of one man, ulysses grant. forced from the army in 1863 because of excessive drinking grant spent eight years in one failed venture after another. in 1861 his father secured him a colonel's commission and according to legend the father didn't fare well with these comforting words, son, you've got a good job now, don't mess it up. yet certainly this commission was certainly not based on good looks. to one observer grant was, quote, an ordinary scrubby looking man with a slightly seedy look. neither a conversationalist nor a mixer, he was a man who always seemed to be alone.

nevertheless, while other union commanders were failing, grant had climbed steadily up the military ladder with resounding victories, stretching from fort henry in 1862, through vicksburg to missionary ridge in 1863. he was clearly the north's man of the hour. when lincoln ordered an east early in 1864 to take command of all federal forces. the somewhere near 500,000 combat ready soldiers grant would have authority over the largest post any american officer had ever led. the new lieutenant general wasted little time in making his strategic intentions known. in the past, grant asserted, union armies had quote, acted independently and without concept like a bulky team of mules, no two pulling to the.

and this allowed confederates to shift men from one sector to the other to meet the most pressing danger. union generals seemed content to maneuver. but that was not the road to victory, grant announced. the north had far superior numbers, and materiel. it was time to switch games. to stop playing chess, and to start playing checkers. now several union armies were to take the offensive simultaneously under grant's new plan. the main army, the army of the potomac, would move directly against lee. a second force would head southward up the shenandoah valley. a third would cross the mountains into southwest virginia, and cut the vital virginia and tennessee railroad. a fourth army would advance up the james river toward richmond. meanwhile, general william sherman would drive southward, from chattanooga toward atlanta. grant himself chose to travel with general george meade's army

of the potomac and he did so for a number of reasons. his presence would shield, for example, the north's chief weapon from congressional interference. congress was always interested in what the army of the potomac was doing. like most congresses it had no actions of its own, it was just always interfering. when sherman heard this, sherman who had a low opinion of congress and newspapers, sherman wrote to grant, i hope you will make it a death penalty for any congressman who enters your county or for diplomatic reasons, grant did not do that. another reason why grant went with that army was its commander. george mead was seven years older than grant. he was a dedicated soldier but overly cautious. his army had done nothing for the last ten months. meade had a violent temper which he could not control. and when unleashed, said one

officer, it sounded to one like cutting an iron bar with a hand saw. grant also knew that he had been appointed to initiate and arm a hopefully successful campaign. thanks to the advent of the telegraph grant could oversee all military theaters as easily in the field as he could from a desk in washington. as for reactions to grant from inside the army of the potomac, they were varied. captain oliver wendell holmes jr. stated there was quote a little jealousy, a little dislike, a little envy, a little want of confidence, all, however, are willing to give him a full chance. for if he succeeds, the war is over. now grant's 1864 strategy followed the same pattern he had always followed. he would devise and try

something. if it failed, he would try something else. but his determination never wavered. he would hammer unrelentingly at the enemy, applying pressure until opposition collapsed. in the spring preparations it is i think interesting to note that there were no parades, no grand reviews as mcclellan and hooker had always enjoyed. grant, instead, preferred to lie casually down the lines, looking intently into the faces of the soldiers who were going to be fighting for him. and giving the impression that it was far more important for him to see the men than for them to see him. as for those veteran soldiers, all they wanted was a competent, aggressive leader. grant kept his distance and kept his silence. late in april, a newspaperman asked the general how long it would take him to get to

richmond. grant stared at the man a long time and then replied well, i will agree to be there in four days. that is if general lee becomes a party to the agreement. and then after pausing, grant added, the trip undoubtedly will be prolonged. across the rapadan, lee waited. his unabashed aggressiveness and willingness to take risks to maximize the striking power of his smaller, ill-equipped army. yet after two years of campaigning, we tend to overlook a vital factor about lee. his health was terrible. manpower was dwindling to critical levels, there was nothing he could do about it. he had problems of his own that included spasmodic diarrhea, rheumatism, mental fatigue, a year earlier he had suffered unquestionably a major heart attack for which he received no medical aid. the field of cardiology lay in the future.

yet to his men, he was as pure a patriot as george washington. as april became may a young soldier in the 31st virginia made a prophesy in a letter home. i hope we will be able to give them a good thrashing for on this fight depends greatly our future safety. on wednesday, may 4th, the big federal push southward began. the lead elements of some 100,000 soldiers crossed the rapadan on pontoon bridges and plunged immediately into a wooded darkness known as the wilderness. 12 miles long, six miles wide, it was a thick mass of second growth timber, dense underbrush, few roads, fewer clearings, little streams that never saw daylight meandered aimlessly and created unexpected ravines and

marshes. visibility in the wilderness was measured in feet. it was the last place in virginia to pick for a major battle. now grant's hope was to march rapidly through the jungle and get into open country to confront lee, yet one of robert lee's distinguishing characteristics was an unwillingness to fight where his opponent wanted to fight. early in the afternoon of may 4th, the blue columns halted in the woods to allow the long wagon trains to catch up with the infantry. lee's army only half the size of grant's could not compete in a stand-up fight. a superior union artillery was nullified because of the thick tangle of wilderness. union soldiers had to advance along roads no wider than 20 feet and hemmed in on both sides by thick woods. this offered lee a momentary advantage, and he took it. grant's army had been marching

only two hours on may 5th when near 7:00 a.m., confederates attacked along two parallel lanes perpendicular to the union advance. mass confusion followed. as yanks scrambled into battle in that impenetrable underbrush. now the park service rangers here who are some of god's given gifts to this country give excellent tours of the action and eliminate my going into detail. suffice it to say, the larger the battle grew, the more invisible it became to everyone. thick woods trapped the gun smoke. unbroken thickets offered no field of fire. man came under heavy fire before they saw the enemy. one determined the battle lines from the noise in a certain direction. several battles, in fact were raging on a single piece of ground. soon flashing gun powder set

woods afire. and untold numbers of wounded men north and south were cremated because they could not get away. burning trees only thickened the gun smoke and brought with them a nauseous atmosphere that had men vomiting while they were shooting. night came and the tempo of violence slowed but never stopped. sleep was impossible. spasmodic firing went up and down the lines before returning to full fury at daylight on may 6th. federals came close to breaking lee's position that second day but the timely arrival of general james longstreet's fresh corps brought a southern counterattack. both sides were disorganized. longstreet, in fact, was shot by his own men and more hours of death passed before grant's men fell back to the road down which they had been traveling in the beginning. tactically speaking grant had experienced as bad a defeat as hooker had received on the same ground a year earlier.

the union army had suffered 17,600 casualties in two days. confederate losses were less than half that number. now this is where i digress a bit from pure military historians. when casualties are mentioned, and every civil war student thinks of aggregate numbers and moves on to a more interesting aspect on the battle, totally overlooked in this approach is the human element in combat. let me take one example. in the two days of the wilderness the vermont brigade all legends from vermont suffered 191 killed, and 947 wounded. over a third of its strength. look again at that number of injured. 947. two days after the battle

surgeon william sloan of the 2nd vermont told a friend i am very tired. i have amputated 100 limbs today. now, if the surgeon was not exaggerating, and no reason exists to believe that he was, then he was cutting off an arm or a leg every ten minutes during a 17-hour period. a modern day orthopedist would not even consider working at 10% of that speed. and further, one can only speculate on how many of those 100 patients fell victim to sepsis and other failed diseases. well, the heavy losses and stunning defeat of the wilderness meant of course once again that it was time for the union army to retreat, attend to its wounds and come back at some future time and do it again. but grant didn't see it that way at all.

for him two days of vicious fighting were but a momentary setback. nothing had occurred to alter his original intent. he had every aim to fulfill the promise he had made to lincoln. quote, whatever happens, there will be no turning back. the defeat of lee's army was still the major objective despite woods full of gun smoke, dead men and dying men, and the woods of the wilderness. hence on the night of may 7th the union army resumed its march heading south. when the column turned toward richmond, it was noted how our spirits rose. that night we were happy. this was unquestionably one of the grand moments of the american civil war. the wilderness was not going to be another manassas or chancellorsville, with the union army tucking its tail between its legs and going back to

washington in search of a new commander. this time there was to be no turning back.$n÷ no collapse of morale. no finger pointing, no clamor for a new army commander. the union army was absorbing its losses and utilizing its strength as a determined general led it southward. for the next 11 months, save for a brief interlude in june, the two armies were never out of contact. it was a pounding, unrelenting campaign. the one type of war with which robert lee could not cope. he could interfere with grant's plans, but he was in no position to impose plans of his own. fighting of some degree occurred every day from may to the following april. tens of thousands of soldiers were killed or crippled in the process. union resources and persistence would shatter confederate resistance and spirit until it

all came to a merciful end at appomattox. but it is not an exaggeration to say that the wilderness was the first sign of the sunset of the confederacy. a few miles north of here on a little clearing at the site of where the 1863 battle of salem church occurred, lost amid all the commercial sprawl of west fredericksburg is a monument. that monument is to the 23rd new jersey. the bronze plaque on the front of the stone obelisk contains the expected phrase, to the memory of our heroic comrades who gave their lives for their country's union on the battlefield. okay. but walk around to the side of that stone marker. there's another identical plaque there. and on it are the words to the

brave alabama boys, our opponents on the field of battle, whose memory we honor. think about that for a moment. england has never constructed any memorial to french soldiers after the battle of waterloo. the germans have never dedicated a marker to polish suffering at warsaw. but we are americans. we are americans. we see things and we do things a little different than other people. because underneath it all we are brothers, all. members of a country like the world has never seen before. and so it is right and fitting that we gather together this morning here on ground made holy by the blood of patriots. we remember because we cannot forget. what happened at the wilderness was a steppingstone in the evolution of a word one rarely

hears anymore, and that word is union. it was for union that each side fought 150 years ago. it is for union that our dedication must always be. without union, we have no nation. only with it can we collectively hope for the future. although i spent over a half century in university classrooms, i know that history is not everyone's favorite subject. indeed, one occasionally, thank goodness, encounters the misguided who want to change the past in order to make it conform to a present day agenda. it's called political correctness. it's nonsense. you cannot alter the past. you can only learn from it. and believe me, history is the best teacher any of you will ever have. so we have to look back to see

where we're going, and there is no other guide. so today we look back at the wilderness. we look back with awe and reverence and inspiration. what those men in the north and south gave, we now share. we must treasure those sacrifices always as being among our richest possessions. may god continue to bless this land we all call our home. thank you. [ applause ]

>> the incredible violence of 1864 reflected the immense stakes, and the men in both armies recognized that connection. before 1864, soldiers might have been under fire for eight hours during an entire year. during the overland campaign, they were sometimes under fire for eight hours or more in a single day. on may 12th, 1864, walter battle of the fourth north carolina fought just a few hundred yards from where you sit today. for nearly 20 hours. he recorded he fired away 120 rounds of ammunition himself, three cartridge boxes full, slogging through trenches filled with water, wounded and dead men. friday morning, may 13th, about an hour before day, we evacuated the works.

i don't suppose there's any man that can express the relief we felt after getting out of such a place. he remembered fighting for those 22 hours without a morsel of food or a drop of water. you can form some idea of what our feelings would have been, putting all these privations together. had there been no danger attending but add to all of this the thought that the next minute may be your last, which is another thing all together. there's not a man in this brigade who will ever forget it. >> for days, weeks, it continued. from the wilderness to spotsylvania, to apot my creek, cold harbor, a union surgeon exclaimed at the end of may 1864, oh, why will not the confederacy burst up.

the experience left soldiers bewildered. from a letter of a member of the first united states sharp shooters, george a. martin, may 15th, 1864. people say it's monday. i never knew it was sunday yesterday, until about sunset. the days have got so mixed up, that i can't keep the run. some days have two nights, and some, no night at all. the sun rises in the southwest. i am so mixed up as that. the toil and stress begot exhaustion and inexpressible sadness. chaplain francis perkins of the 10th massachusetts, may 15th, 1864. you have been expecting doubtless some accounts of the movements occurring during this campaign. but never did i feel so utterly adverse to writing. never did it seem so almost impossible to connect and

express any thought as now. all my energies of thought and emotion are used up by the actual passing events. and to recall the past is positively painful. our brave fellows, they have melted away, like smoke. [ bagpipes playing ]

brak [ bagpipes playing ♪

>> all that had been wagered in this war, treasured lives, would be won or lost in these months of 1864. for grant, there was no turning back. for the armies there were no turning points, just crossroads. literal and symbolic. in the wilderness, at spotsylvania courthouse. grant chose the road south toward richmond, toward petersburg. it was a tide rather than a moment. lee could not stop it. still, the confederates remained fiercely determined. the rebellion dies very hard, one artilleryman told his hometown newspaper. newspapers across the south noted grant's army at cold harbor stood almost precisely where mcclellan's had stood in

1964 but it suffered horrendous casualties in getting to the very same place. most confederates maintained great hope that lee would eventually 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 and 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 and united country and a free government can repay for the precious blood

that must be shed and the inexpressible sufferings that must be endured before this comparatively 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 spotsylvania and petersberg. as we explore what was truly a momentous epic, one that reverberated across america like few events ever have, 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 were 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 they are questions that are essential to the health of our nation. we thank you for coming. [ applause ] tonight, american history tv's look at the civil war continues with the battle of fort stevens taking place in the nation's capital on july 11th

and 12th, 1864. confederate forces probed the defenses of the heavily fortified capital city before deciding to turn back. tonight, watch as officials from the national park service commemorate the 150th anniversary of the battle of fort stevens. we will also tour the battlefields of the monocacy and fort stevens and visit several surviving forts in the nation's capital. that's tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span 3. coming up next, author goron rhea discusses the significance of the battle of cold harbor, the final major conflict in the overland campaign which took place in virginia 150 years ago in may and june of 1864. we take a look at the strategies employed by union general grant and confederate general lee as well as the challenges they faced during the battle. this hour-long event took place at the cold harbor battlefield in mechanicsburg, 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 battlefield 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 border that was only 35 years after the end of the american civil war. as you might imagine, most of those old men sitting around the grocery store were confederate 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 you to think with me back on 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. the battles at fort henry and donaldson, shilo, vicksburg, chattanooga. he gives grant 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 fasten on to the confederate armies and 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. we're going to see the spring of 1864 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, that 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 by 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, threatening the confederate flank, 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 massing of armies that grant sees for the entire nation. now, 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 to one or the other. lee basically undertakes a waiting game. what is grant going to do. grant is going to move one way or the other. lee is uncertain. so he forfeits the initiative to his opponent. this is unlike the lee that we usually see. but in this instance, he had no choice. he sends his cavalry out past each end of his line sort of to act as a trip wire to let him know where the federals are coming from, and waits. grant visits the army of the potomac and has to decide what to do. as you civil war historians

know, that army was commanded by general george gordon meade, the hero of gettysburg. meadee was in the hot seat. he was being investigated by congress. he failed to destroy lee's army at gettysburg. and so meadee was in a bad situation. grant visited him and was impressed by meade, because what meade 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 meade on, he needed somebody with meade'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 meade'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. because here on the battlefield at cold harbor, they are going to play a big part. grant and meade will have a very bad relationship. initially meade will be hopeful that it will work out, but these are two very different kinds of generals. grant likes to do the unexpected. is willing to take risks. meade is much more cautious. socially they're very different people and their aides comes from very different social strata. they write home and tell their wives basically that the relationship is deteriorating. after a few days of fighting, meade 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 these 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 commanded by general hancock. i'm sure you're all familiar with him. one of the best of the union generals. 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 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 the importance of little round top at gettysburg but didn't have a lot of experience commanding troops. he's also something of an odd duck.

as a matter of fact, some of his subordinates commented on how he loved to recite limericks and then he would be the only one to laugh at them. 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 as this campaign unfolds, often thought his plans were better than those of his superiors. the union's sixth corps will be in the hands of general sedgwick. unfortunately, john sedgwick won't last very long. he will be shot down by a south carolina sharpshooter at the battle of spotsylvania courthouse. by the time the armies get here to cold harbor, the union's sixth corps will be headed by a gentleman by the name of 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. but because of burnside's former position, grant decides that burnside can't serve underneath meade and instead will report directly to grant who will then coordinate him with general meade. you can see the command confusion that's going to take place and some of that will become evident here at cold harbor. the union cavalry is in a very interesting situation. the union cavalry, most of the commanders that you historians would have been familiar with are now gone. john buford has died. general kilpatrick is gone, 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 army of the potomac. general grant will be selecting the cavalry commander who will

be reporting to general meade. a very awkward command relationship. and a command relationship that won't work, because each of these are extraordinarily strong-willed men. i expect maybe phil sheridan's appearance might have had to do with his problems as well. contemporary 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 meade. what about robert e. lee and his force? the people that will meet here

at cold harbor? well, lee had three infantry army corps, and one cavalry corps. robert e. lee's first corps begins the campaign under general james 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. fairly undistinguished. 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 become increasingly ill and by the time the armies get here to cold harbor, he will have been replaced by early, a former prosecutor, strong-willed irascible guy. i have a fondness for prosecutors, having been a prosecutor myself. 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 some 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 miss 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 bristow 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 rapadan 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 some miles north of richmond. he feels he has to hold that line, otherwise he would be driven back to the confederate capital and find himself esconced 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 grant figures it, 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 strong entrenchments. the army of the potomac starts to shift south. a dramatic point in the war, by the way, because up to this point, whatever union generals had been trounced in a battle as bad as lee, had defeated grant in the wilderness, they always retreated. but grant moved south.

lee gets a finger of his army in front of grant, blocks him at spotsylvania courthouse. there is brutal fighting in places with names such as the mule shoe, the bloody angle, that goes on for over a week at 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 entice 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. grant is able to get a finger of his army across the north anna river. 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 that 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, lying 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 some two days. grant of course 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 along the north anna, then where the north anna joins with other rivers, to the pamunkey. he will aim for the pamunkey 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, slice off the confederate supply lines 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 pamunkey 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 pamunkey 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. himself mightily. but still is untried in commanding this large of a body of troops. what lee decides to do is send a forts to reconnoiter, to find where the federals are, and grant and meade decide to send a force to reconnoiter to find out where the confederates are. so on the morning of may 28th with the union army pouring sheridan starts a force 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, and the two of them, of course, encounter each other at a place called hawes shop near salem church. this is a place that the hawes

shop area, of course, in recent times has been renamed after bob crick who introduced me here and it's now called stud ly. there's a massive cavalry fight at hawes shop that occupies most of may 28th, and it's a dramatic and different kind of cavalry fight. the confederates commanded by wade hampton basically get off of their horses, throw up fieldworks, 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, and so this cavalry fight goes on all day until toward the end of the day general -- george armstrong custer is able to break the impasse, overruns portions of hampton's line, and the confederates fall back, and

as nightfall comes across hanover county, it's clear that the federals have driven wade hampton's cavalry back. who won this battle of hawes shop? well, if you count winning battles as who occupied 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 had 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 because in scooping up union prisoners, he'd also picked up some union infantry and way able to learn grant's location. so the battle of hawes shop is really the first engagement that lead up to the battle at cold harbor. 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 pam k

pamunky and you look at richmond, the next defensible line is the creek. it's a marshy, high banked small stream that runs just below the pamunkey and lee decides to take up a line along the creek. so during the last part of may 28th all night and into the next day, the confederate army of 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 union supply depot at a place called white house landing. so what the union generals decide to do is reconnoiter in force, basically send out the whole union army to look for lee, and so horatio wright's 6th corps moves down the main road toward atly 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 shorting it shift further down stream on the creek. so the 29th is a day of reconnoitering. big thoughts are in the mind of both the union and federal -- 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 moving on richmond, have just been defeated. i'm told by my virginia friends that the force up in the shenandoah valley awas defeated by a handful of vma cadets. that might be a slight exaggeration but they were defeated.

and general butler was defeated by general beauregard and another force of confederates, all of this happening may 15th, may 16th. grant realizes now 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. and so somewhere around the 28 9 of may baldy smith starts toward cold harbor area, basically going to be coming in at white house landing. he's going to be coming by boat and it's quite an operation. baldy smith is going to take his 18th corps from an area called city point in the bermuda hundred area year petersburg, come down the james river, swing around around come up the york into the pamunkey and land by boats at white house landing. it's going to take a few days and 3w58dy smith's men won't

arrive until the 30th of may. lee also is looking for reinforcements. general breckenridge, who had defeated segal is now freed up and is pouring down here in this direction, reaches the army of northern virginia, and takes up a position on the creek. lee also petitions richmond for reinforcements from that area because now that general butler is out of the picture, that should free up confederate troops there and a decision is made to send him general hoke's division. general hoke's division will start moving this way from richmond. 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 is the pamunkey it, below it is the creek and then there's two roads below the creek.

one is shady grove road and 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, this 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 second corps, jubal early. and jubal early puts together a plan to coordinate 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.

this is going to be a two-pronged attack. well, things start off pretty well. jubal early and his men go charging down the old church road, manage to drive the federals back who are down in that area, mainly pennsylvanians from the pennsylvania reserves and some heavy are a tillerists. drive them back to bethesda church and then charge north into the underbelly of warren's main force. where though is anderson? anderson it turns out has not stepped off. he september 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 jubal early's attack is futile. it's a slaughter. the brigade headed by colonel edward willis is virtually massacred by warren's men, by union artillery placements, and 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 vi tuber tiff letters to each other explaining how the defeat had been the fault of the other. what does that all add up to? what it adds up to is this, grant now realizes and meade now realizes that this army of northern virginia has lost its punch. the men that warren had defeated, one of the most inexperienced union generals, is stonewall jackson's old boys, the confederate's 2nd corps. it had been unable to launch an effective attack against an inferior force. the army of northern virginia as far as the union commanders were concerned was a defeated entity. eyes now shifted south of the shady grove road to a@gzñ plac called old cold harbor, some three-quarters of a mile east of here. old cold harbor is a place where

several roads came together, roads from white house landing,s union supply depot, roads that ran to richmond and, of course, roads that ran down this way from the armies. lee knew that the 18th corps under baldy smith was headed this way. he was getting reports from scouts along the james river. he knew that the federals were coming this way. he wanted to find out what was going on toward white house landing. he sends a cavalry force out that way, some south carolinians. they're driven back at a creek. that only increases his belief that the federals are headed this way and baldy smith is probably planning some kind of an attack. lee realizes that if the federalists can take this intersection, they then will be below the lower flank of his army, they could slip around the army of northern virginia, they could attack him in the flak or th they could take richmond. this little obscure intersection becomes a critical piece of the

puzzle here at cold harbor. the 31st of may, 150 years ago today, cold harbor starts to become the focus of these armies. the south carolina cavalry men who had made this excursion through cold harbor ask for reinforcements. they're sent reinforcements in the form of a cavalry division. lee again urges that hoke and his men from richmond hurry up and, indeed, as the morning passes, hoke's men start to appear. the federal cavalry commanders realize the importance of taking old cold harbor intersection. general custer talks it through with his commander, general torbert, and they launch an

attack against old cold harbor. they're driven back to an area near where we are right now. and so now by the end of the 31st of may, 150 years ago today, old cold harbor is in union hands. it's being held by union cavalry. grant and lee, of course, each realize the importance of this. old cold harbor is becoming the focus. and so what lee decides to do is to shuttle more troops here. hoke's men are pulling up. what lee does is to have anderson, head of his confederate first corps, start marching down this way to march down to cold harbor as fast as possible to support hoke's men down here. and as far as the federal commanders are concerned, baldy smith is to hurry to old cold harbor with his 18th corps and general horatio wright is to take his 6th corps, pull it out

from the high line up there along the creek, swing it behind the union forces, and rush to cold harbor as well. so almost exactly 24 hours and 150 years ago to this moment if we were here at this spot where we are right now we'd have union cavalry at old cold harbor. right where we are, we would have hoke's men, the north carolinians forming pretty much where we are, georgia boys forming a line more to the south. martin's north carolinians down below that and johnson heygood's south carolinians buttressing them. we would be in the burgeoning confederate line and during the darkness of tonight, there would be the tramp of soldiers on either side, infantry, pouring into old cold harbor.

sunrise on june 1. the head of anderson's 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 this cold harbor road and he himself will follow a path from the allison house over toward old cold harbor via beulah church. anderson's foray is going to be a disaster and it's going to be a disaster because of some changes made in the confederate command structure. a couple of days earlier lawrence kit, who was one of the south carolina fire eaters had come to old -- had come to richmond. he had brought with him a new regiment. it was called the 20th south carolina, and it was huge.

it had been 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 side. lawrence kit had been a fire eater during the secessionist times but had no experience whatsoever fighting virginia style. he had a lot of political clout though and was put in charge of the brigade that had formally been headed by general kershaw, more recently by colonel hennigan, a bri gad of south carolinians. that brigade was the one that was given the command to reconnoiter toward old cold harbor. well, it was a disaster. kit 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 as they see what's coming at them. they wait until the confederate

forces under kit get close and open fire and it's a massacre. kit is badly injured, shot through the liver. he will die shortly. his forces are routed, and anderson falls back and 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. anderson is supposed to be coordinating the efforts here. he has a confederate brigade plug that gap for a bit, but as horatio wright's federals, 6th corps, starts to pull into place south of the road, he pulls the south carolinians out of place, tacks them onto the south end of the confederate line so this ravine is now undefended.

it's a weak spot in the confederate position. well, what happens on the june si -- union side, they fill the area down below us and the fields to our front -- as a matter of fact directly in front of us is elements from general eustices brigade an opium eating harvard professor type. and general upton, one of the best commanders, upton had masterminded a spectacular assault a spotsylvania courthouse. north of them are baldy smith's men recently arrived from richmond who will fill in north of this big ravine and stream that i was just talking about. now, upton's force is interesting. in recent weeks soldiers had been brought down from the defenses of washington and baltimore. these men were called heavy

artillerists. they had very little combat experience. the only confederates most of them had seen would be confederate prisoners. upton had been reinforced with one of those regiments. it was called the 2nd connecticut heavy artillery 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 fortunately his brigade in four lines, the first three lines will be the heavy are a i will artillery. 6:00, the order for the charge comes out and the union force comes scretreaming forward. upton's men come onto these fields. they take heavy losses. upton himself crouches behind trees and according to some

accounts was firing muss kets and getting handed new muskets. it's usual 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 managed to make it to the confederate works. a group of 6th corps soldiers start working their way down this wooded stream. they're under good cover, and they discover that it's undefended. 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 back and forth. huge deeds of valor, but by nightfall the union forces have managed a few breakthroughs, many of the union soldiers are pressed against the opposite side of the same earthworks that are confederates are defending. nightfall brings an end to the fighting.

union forces pull back somewhat. other places the confederates drop back some. what does it all add up to? well, something like 2,200 union casualties in that assault 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. definitely now it's clear the fight is out of lee's army. if there had only been a few more hours of daylight, if there had only been 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 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 2nd corps to cold harbor getting ready for a massive assault, the

big assault to take place on june 2, the next day. 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 3 rd corps, two divisions of it are to shift down behind them and tack onto 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, and he had several reasons for wanting to do it. he realized, of course, first that a stalemate was not going to sell very well. he was wedded to the idea of a mobile campaign. the last thing he wanted to do was to be stuck in earthworks at cold harbor. the confederate position now is arngorred toward the creek. 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 were a lot more reinforcements that could come so now was the time to make an attack before lee could reinforce his lines. and 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 the river to his back. it looked like the perfect time to launch an assault. politically it was a good time as well. the nominating convention in baltimore was going to convene within the next week or so. what better present for president abraham lincoln than the final demise of the army of northern virginia? and finally, of course, there's those virginia summers. the soldiers with the army of the potomac had fought in these fields during the search days campaign and, of course, they

knew 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 was 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 of the day. same problem with other soldiers marching down into this area, and 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 earthworks that they built

during the entire war. they had time to not only sight their line along high ground, they dug the entrenchments, threw dirt up, they put their head logs into place, they cleared fields of fire. they had learned in these previous battles how do do overlapping fields of fire, how to throw obstacles in front of the earthworks 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 grounds 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 bastion. grant, however, was still determined to make the attack. in 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 general meade, and general meade sent

out orders to his corps commander. unfortunately, relations between meade and grant had deteriorated at this point badly. meade viewed grant as having very little military talent, viewed him as a man who threw men against earthworks often for very little purpose. this was not his style of warfare. grant i might say was also becoming very disaffected with meade whom he considered to be too cautious and at this stage of the war they weren't traveling together. they rode separately and head their headquarters up in separate places. it was like a dysfunctional family and, of course, it's going to be the soldiers of the army of the potomac who will pay for this dysfunction. meade does very little to prepare for the assault. there are no orders that effectively coordinate the army corpses. very little reconnoitering. there are many stories that have come down about cold harbor.

one of the stories and i'm sure most of you have heard is that the unitroops who had been twook attacking these kind of confederate earthworks for the next several weeks knew they were probably going to get killed and men would write their names on paper and pin it to their jackets so their bodies could be identified. i doubt that that really happened here at cold harbor. i have checked through the contemporary sources and the letters from the men and none of them mention 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's filled with literary inventions, and i suspect that 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 that 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 monolith heaves forward or parts of it do, and that's the sad thing about the battle of cold harbor. down on the lower end of the battlefield, general hancock's 2nd corps punches forward, attacks the confederate works. across from them. at one spot they make a break through at a salient in the confederate line where general breckenridge is positioned but lee has a lot of reserves. one myth about cold harbor is lee did not have any reserves, that his line was thin. that's simply not true. some parts of the confederate line had entire divisions behind them, and that was the situation down on the lower end of the battlefield where hancock made his attack. the confederate reserves pour in, drive hancock's men out, and the union 2nd corps finds itself in an untenable position, men

spread across the fields, wounded men, men who are not wounded but can't get back to their lines, start throwing up dirt, digging with canteens, burrowi burrowing behind bodies. all of the horrors you think of cold harbor are taking place along hancock's line. in this area which is where the union's 6th corps, horatio wright's men were to make its attack, very little happened. as a matter of fact, the confederate -- one of the confederate generals near where we are right now later wrote that he had no idea that 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 that the confederates had two more days to get ready for them. they moved forward a short distance and started digging and the accounts of soldiers who fought on this part of the battlefield reflect that as well as the low casualties in the union's 6th corps. baldy smith's men to our north

attacked. and baldy smith had come up with what he thought was a great idea, they would go forward in columns down the next ravine over. it's called the middle ravine on the park services maps, and they figured that way he could -- he would have enough mass to punch through the confederate line. well, good idea but it wouldn't work this time because the confederate 1st corps had had plenty of time to strengthen its earthworks. they'd realized that these ravines were ways the federals might try to break through to the confederate engineers had positioned artillery along those ravines and had dug entrenchments there is basically this union column would be feeding into what military men call a reentrant angle. what i like to call a pencil sharpener. like a pencil going in and getting ground to pieces.

that's what happened to baldy smith's 18th corps. men were slaughtered as they poured down those fields and into the ravines. within a short time the 18th corps was stymied, again 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 that those famous words, it's not war, it's murder, and up in that part of the field it looked just like that. the union 5th and 9th corps, who were way up to the northern end of this battle field, did very little until a few hours had passed and launched another disjointed assault and later in the afternoon will try yet once again. so this massive attack at cold harbor is really a disjointed set of attacks by disparate union army corpses, 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 actually led men in battle and had the honor one time to do a staff ride with general franks, and we talked a lot about cold harbor as well. and i asked their opinion, what do you think of grant's decision to attack at cold harbor and the way that it was executed? and the answer that i have 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 a supreme commander has to make. the politics of it and the situation of the armies, the expectation of perhaps more confederate reinforcements made this a rational or reasonable time to make that kind of an 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 meade as army commander was responsible for making sure that the coordination was there, that the supports were there, that the field was reconnoitered, and he didn't do that, and, of course, as many have pointed out, grant also had an obligation to make sure that that was done by his subordinate, general meade. so i think there's plenty of fauflt to go around. grant later, of course, wrote that this attack at cold harbor was an attack that he wished had never been made. i find that interesting that he wrote that in the passive voice. he didn't say i wished i had never made it. he simply said i wish it was an attack that hadn't made. i have always wondered whether or not that's not a little sideswipe on his part at general meade. in any event, by noon grant called off the attack, and that was the end of the famous attack at cold harbor. in later years historians have written about the battle and

talked about the casualties that took place here and you see all sorts of inflated stories about how the attack at cold harbor on june 3rd, which is the big assault, produced 7,000 union casualties in ten minutes or 15,000 casualties in five minutes. you will see everything all over the lot. when i was working on my book on cold harbor, i spent a lot of time investigating what were the real casualties that took place here? they were terrible but what were they really? when you go to the in accordana archives and go through the actual casualties reports from the units actually engaged, the casualties are about half of what is 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 really ranks somewhere around six or seven, searchventh worst among

assaults of the civil war as far as casualties. bad it was, but it was not the absolute catastrophe that it's often painted up to be, and, as a matter of fact, it's the losses in this assault were in many ways no worse and in some cases less than assaults that had been launched in the wilderness and spotsylvania courthouse. over the next day or two, the armies jockeyed for position. the fields that you're looking across now were scenes of absolute horror. of wounded men lying across the fields, unwounded men lying there but unable to get food or water. sharpshooters on each side killing anything that moved, anybody 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, on june 5th, after the big assault had taken place, general hancock went to general meade and asked if there could be some sort of flag of truce so that wounded men could be brought back in from his portion of the line. he had -- 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 this truce is going to 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 fields that we're in today and bring back the bodies because there are very few wounded left alive. it's hard to tell exactly how many remained, but by many accounts there's five or six and the rest are all now bodies. we would also be treated to the sight of both 10esoldiers from h side trading tobacco and coffee. there are accounts of the union soldiers moving up toward the confederate lines, talking with the confederates, 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. and 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 the 13th. so they will be here for another week. during that time very few wounded men are brought in. during that time there's some movements, some jockeying, there's some assaults. i'd tell you what happened during those days, but i haven't quite finished my next book which covers the battles, so i don't want to give away all the details. the big thing is this though, grant realizes now as he had at the wilderness and spotsylvania and north anna, that he cannot break through here at cold harbor and so he does what he has always done, and that is he decides 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 shenandoah valley, take places like lynchburg and cut

off the james river canal. he's then going it take the army of the potomac, pull it out of the 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 of northern virginia, and finally defeat lee. the union plan works like clockwork. sheridan, of course, heads off on his raid. it will end fairly disastrous l a battle but it serves its purse for a time. on the morning of the 13th of june, lee and his men look across and discover that the union earthworks are empty. grant once again has managed to pull his army away without being -- without lee figuring ought 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 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 petersbu petersburg. lee is now alerted to what's going on. confederates manage 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, spotsylvania courthouse, north anna and here at cold harbor because each place he was able to deflect grant. but if you look at this as a unified campaign, i'd have to say that grant was the winner of the campaign. grant's goal was to neutralize lee's army of northern virginia, and after some 40-odd days of horrendous fighting, he did just that. lee would now be locked into those entrenchments 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 rapid ann river and after these series of battles, he had been driven back into richmond. he, too, realized he had failed in his goal. casualties were horrendous. something like 33,000 confederates during this campaign were captured, killed, or wounded. something like 55,000 union soldiers killed,h?kt captured,

wounded. 88,000 americans all told in 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, well, 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 have enjoyed chatting with you today. i'm sure i have said 50 things that will cause a lot of debate and some of you may have some questions as well. and i believe i have been asked to talk to you for a little

while. sort of like the king that's supposed to hold back the tides, i'm supposed to keep you happy until the sun goes down. i would glad to take a question or two if that would help or whatever you'd like to do, david. what's that? well, i guess i've done my job then. so thank you very much. i appreciate it. [ applause ] tonight, we continue with the battle of ft. stevens. taking place in the nation's capital on july 11th and 12th. confederate forces underjubal early probe the defenses of the fortified capital city before deciding to turn back. tonight watch as officials from the national park service commemorate the 150th anniversary of the battle of ft. stevens. we'll also tour the battlefields and visit several surviving

forts in the nation's capital. that's all tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span3. up next, a look at the conclusion of the overland campaign. civil war scholar james robertson describes union general ulysses s. grant's crew side to destroy the southern confederacy. it is where robert e. lee earned his greatest and final victory of the war. >> good evening. i'm rick raines and i'm the pastor at the fairmount christian church and we're really sad that you are here tonight. we know we are much anticipating being over at the battlefield tonight but we are glad that you could be here with us tonight and i have been asking if i would simply begin our evening with a word of invocation. please bow with me. father in heaven, we come to

this place tonight not to celebrate war but to celebrate sacrifice, loyalty, bravery, and the things that have happened in our history to make us the great nation we are today. may we learn from the lessons of history, may we not repeat the lessons that divide us but may we repeat those lessons that make us, indeed, strong. tonight, dear lord, i thank you for the national park service and their very hard work in bringing this event to our community, to our state, and to our nation. and, lord, i am most grateful that you have allowed us to be part of this. bless what we do in this place this evening and we humbly ask, dear father, that you bless our nation. in jesus name, amen. >> on the 4th of may, 1864, the

union army of the potomac crossed the rapid ann river and passed into the dense woodland the locals called the wilderness. near the bridges, brass bands played the national airs along with other soldier favorite that is stirred the men's souls with optimism and hope. none could know but the final campaign of the war had begun. by the end of may the armies had crossed many rivers. the bloody battles of the will derness, spotsylvania courthouse and the north anna river had pushed human daring and suffering to the extreme. but the soldiers valiantly fought on. soon after the fight along the north anna river, u.s. assistant secretary of war charles dana hoped to transfer the lingering soldiers' optimism to the war weary northern home front. to boost moral back home and garner political support to

continue the war effort, dana proudly proclaims, the rebels have lost all confidence and are already morally defeated. this army has learned to believe that it is sure of victory. even our officers have cease to regard lee as an invincible military genius. on the part of the rebels this, change is evinced, not only by their not attacking even when circumstances seem to invite it, but by the unanimous statement of prisoners taken from them. rely upon it, the end is near as well. similarly in late may, the washington republican and the philadelphia bulletin also reported, lee has commenced a hasty retreat pursued with real vigor by grant. grant is evidently embarrassingly. unless lee stops to fight today we shall hear next of a grand conflict for the city of richmond before or in the works of that capital.

advices say that jeff davis and his cabinet left richmond some days ago. there is little doubt that richmond by this time is pretty well cleaned out of its inhabitants and that it is nothing less than a fortress. >> by june 3rd, 1864, the union army arrived within eight miles of richmond. the weary, dust-caked soldiers on the front line who had endured a month of incessant hard marching, unimaginable blood letting and death, dug around cold harbor. grant's unrelenting hammering of lee's vat tran army continued on this day 150 years ago. a frontal assault was ordered that was unmatched for its sheer brutality. following the june 3rd assaults at cold harbor, private david coon of the 36 wisconsin wrote to his daughter from the trenches. no words that i can write can give you an idea of it. how would you feel to see your

father lying in a ditch behind a bank of earth all day with rebel bullets flying over his head so that his life was in danger if he should raise on his feet without a chance to get anything to eat, then running across an open field toward a rebel battery with rebel bullets, grape, and canister flying like hail and men falling, killed and wounded all about him. and finally ordered to fall on our faces so that the storm could pass over us. and then be obliged to lie in that position until covered by the darkness of night so we could get away and then start on a force ed march in the night without a chance to get supper. to see him lie down in the dirt and if allowed to stop for a few minutes, so exhausted as to fall asleep. my dear daughter, your father may be lying dead on the field of battle and you may not know it, and so it was for the soldiers north and south.

>> thank you for joining us this evening. my name is david ruth and i'm the superintendent of richmond national battle field park and i would like to take just a moment to introduce to you all tonight our participants in this evening's program. first our honored guest, dr. james i. robertson. dr. paul levengood, david adams, a close personal friend who i'm happy to say and steward of a large portion of the cold harbor battle field. our readers ashley whitehead luskey and michael gorman and a special thanks to our chorus from the lee davis high school. thank you all very much for being with us and this program tonight. [ applause ] >> for the last week and a half, many of you have followed in the

footsteps of union and confederate armies across the north anna and the pa munkey rivers, the creek, bethesda church and near here at the cold harbor crossroads. tonight we will pause to ponder the sig cabs of these stories and what they meant to the veterans of both armies and generations of americans who came after. as we do that, we need to acknowledge the hard work of so many who joined with us in remembering and commemorating this unforgettable part of our shared history. from its own commemorative events at north anna to supporting our events here, hanover county has been a real strong partner with us, helped us with buses and helped us with many of the logistics and we thank the board of super raisers and rue harris, the county administrator for their assistance. we could not have done this

without the support of fairmont church. this evening is an example of that partnership which we had in place when we knew rain might be a possibility. their parking lot provided perfect places for our shuttles to have the tours emanate from. so without fairmont church this certainly could not have happened. our commemoration of the battle would not have been possible without the work of our newest partner, the rural plains do foundation working hard to expand the profinal of the rural plains unit and i think katherine patterson, our chairman, is here this evening. if you could raise your hand. there she is over to my left. thank you, katherine, for being with us. at richmond region tourism under jack berry provided support that helped us conduct and publicize these commemorative programs. and once again we are pleased with the virginia historical society working together with us to offer a program with gary

gallagher that set the stage for our 1864 commemorations. it seems like a month ago now. but thank you, paul, for your strong partnership with the national park service. and i also must say that i can stand up here tonight and provide some great words that some of my staff has really helped me write, but none of this could have happened without the staff of richmond national battlefield park, around i lost some nights worrying about the logistics but they lost a lot of nights putting together the programs over the last week. i'd like if you could just stand real quick, if you don't mind. no matter what division you're in. [ applause ] and volunteers, please. [ applause ]

>> these folks, many of them, were at the church parking lot this morning at 3:30 a.m. and met the tours and followed in the footsteps of the 18th and they are, they're here tonight so as the superintendent of this park, i couldn't be more impressed by this staff and proud. so thank you all so very much. [ applause ] and finally, parts of this battlefield would not be available to tell their stories were it not for the work of the civil war trust and the richmond battlefields association. their preservation work will ensure that these places will inspire our children, grandchildren, and generations to come. indeed, these places, this land,

and the story it contains are the reasons that we are here. 150 years ago hanover county, virginia, became one of the bloodiest landscapes on the continent, for more than two weeks, tens of thousands of americans fought one another here, struggled to survive here, and died here. farms were transformed into battlefields. few communities suffered like hanover, and the war gave it an enduring identity. when the armies departed, families like the garthrights, the baezes, the watts, and the adamses, the mcgees and the burnetts were left to deal with the human wreckage left behind, they also faced the immense struggle of regaining their livelihoods that the war nearly destroyed. in all of our previous programs, we told the civilian story through written accounts left behind by the participants. tonight is different. our first speaker, david adams, is a life-long resident of cold harbor and is proud to represent

the fifth generation of the adams family to live on the battlefield. he is here to talk about what it is like to be so closely connected to the land and the community of such a famous place. and i must also add that through the hospitality of the adams family, david and his mother, mary beth, who is with us tonight here near the front row, the park was able to take folks along the foot path of the 2nd corps attack on june 3rd. we thank you all so much for that hospitality that you have always shown us, particularly this morning when we were there bright and early. thank you all. david? pistons ps [ applause ] before david gets started, i did want to mention that it's very appropriate that he's sitting next to dr. robertson. he's a tech graduate himself, holds a master's degree in government from the university of richmond and uses those credentials to teach young people since 1979 where he

taught at richmond community high school much of the current staff of the battlefield had the good fortune of knowing both david, mary beth, his mother, and david's father, edwin, who very good-naturedly and with great patience welcomed many inquisitive park service historians to his farnl over the years. often graciously allowing our groups eager to see this historic ground the right to step on this historic land. and the park service we talk about a lot about stewardship. we try to take care of our sites, all national treasures, in a possible way. the addams family through many generations have treated their portion of the battlefield with great respect and gentleless. they have been ideal stewards and we're extremely grateful for that. again, thank you for being with us this evening. [ applause ]

>> good evening. i wish to thank dave ruth, superintendent of the richmond national battlefield park for extending the invitation to speak on this significant occasion in the life of our country. it is, indeed, an enormous honor to have the opportunity to share this time with dr. robertson and mr. levengood. dave, i thank you very much. in 1864 joseph adams owned a farm about a mile south of new cold harbor. he was 48 years old, had a very young family for his age, and made a living raising wheat, corn, and vegetables. i am his great great grandson. i grew up and was raised and worked on the same farm.

today i continue to live on it. it is a place filled with the beauty of wheat rolling in waves with the wind, emerald green cornfields if adequate rain has fallen, and for years cattle grazing across pastures, but this exact same place also bore enormous violence. i am so very honored to represent a connection with the civilian population of that long ago time, 150 years. this is very meaningful to me. we all know how the war divided the country. it divided families. it divided cold harbor. most cold harbor residents certainly supporting secession and the confederacy. they saw the war as an invasion

by high-handed government. but others saw it differently. they were southern unionists. such southerners likely felt that dissolving the union would end in tragedy. these differences were present in the cold harbor community. it was a civil war through and through. my grandfather was born on the form and worked it all his life. he shared an account given to him by his father of horsemen returning to cold harbor years after the battle, war veterans. the image that was most dominant in the account was that some of the returning men were emotional. and so we wonder what had they seen at cold harbor?

what had they experienced at cold harbor? what did they remember about cold harbor? why were some over time, war relics would be unearthed by the adams' plow. through my grandfather's youth, like his father and grandfather, plowing was done walking behind a mule. by my father's boyhood, a tractor-drawn plow would also inevitably latch on to war material. sometimes a rainfall would have the same effect. revealing lead bullets, shell and cannonball fragments. occasionally a bayonet. occasionally a rifle. and occasionally, portions of human bone.

rust and decay marked how long ago they had left in the spot they fell that june day. for years, picking a lead bullet off the ground was pretty common place. we never gave its background a second thought. holding a war relic never really conveys anything close to what happened here. how easy to ignore that a lead bullet dropped a century and a half ago may have passed through a man. did it take his life? if it did so, how long did it take him to die? and what of my grandfather's grandfather's farm on june 3rd, 1864? we know that enormous damage occurred on his place from the battle of gains mill only two junes before.

his house had been a union field hospital. in june 1864, the two armies had returned again. having survived and witnessed the carnage of war once, what dread must have filled his mind and heart. hell on earth was coming again to cold harbor. as a boy, who always loved history, living on a farm that had been a battlefield always invoked a romantic image of war. it was always an image confined to heroism and valor and duty. and cold harbor was about those things. this youthful image of mine, however, included men falling neatly in lines, dead to the

ground, and wounds that could be easily patched up. it would be much later before i would comprehend as my father and grandfather did that our farm also produced immense suffering, untold agony and cruelty. but it also produced a genuine devotion to what those americans of 150 years ago thought was right. thank you for your time, and i appreciate it very much. [ applause ] >> one of the pleasures of being superintendent of this

battlefield park is the opportunity to collaborate with other historical institutions, to work in tandem towards shared goals aimed at strengthening the story of the old dominion and how it is told. one of those colleagues is dr. paul levengood. he's president and ceo of the virginia historical society. a position he's held for six years. paul is a native of pennsylvania, like myself, with degrees from davidson college and from rice university where he earned his doctorate in history. his many scholastic accomplishments, serving as editor of the virginia magazine of history and biography. work on the editorial advisory board of the encyclopedia virginia and publication of a book entitled "virginia, centuries," published in 2007. that volume was the official commemorative project of the virginia chamber of commerce. paul is married, has three

the virginia historical society into the 21st century with a steady and imaginative hand. one of your staff and some of you may imagine who this is, has remarked to me that he has been to every state historical society in the south except for florida, not sure why, and that none can approach the virginia historical society for quality, efficiency, and usefulness. so, paul, we appreciate all that you do. we're assembled here between the lines this evening, if we were, in fact, at cold harbor. as a group, at this place, that witnessed countless hundreds of untold personal tragedies, no doubt some of us if we were actually on the battlefield tonight, would be sitting or standing on the very spot where a corpse may have lay 150 years ago tonight. for the survivors, it was too soon to extract broad meaning or context from their ordeal. paul is here tonight to reflect on that topic, how cold harbor came to be remembered.

[ applause ] >> thank you very much, dave. and good evening, everyone. now, in stand-up comedy, the role i am playing right now is what you would call the middle. in other words, i'm serving as a bridge from the opener, who gets the crowd going, and in this case, gets the crowd moved, to the headliner, and that's the one that everyone came to see. so i think you'll agree, we had a wonderful opener in mr. adams. that was very moving. and my role now is to efficiently get you to our friend, the incomparable bud robertson, who is obviously the main attraction this evening. so as i middle here, i hope i can keep your attention for a few moments. and i promise that unlike a comedy show, there will be no ventriloquism or jokes about airline food.

when superintendent dave ruth called and asked me to say a few words at this event, which, of course, marks a century and a half since the battle of cold harbor, i asked, why me? after all, i'm a 20th century historian by training. my war took place 70 years ago, not 150. however, dave said something kind about my presence adding to the event, and i certainly appreciated that. but between us, he's my sometime doubles tennis partner, and it's in his best interest to keep my ego stroked. but i do appreciate his confidence in bringing me here. now, i'll admit that when i was thinking about this evening, it caused me a few sleepless nights, so i'm glad, dave, you had sleepless nights and i did too. after all, what can i add that bud, or gordon ray, or a host of other experts has not already said about the battle itself? this isn't my era, obviously.

my ability to add something to our understanding is limited. but once i realized that i really wasn't expected to become an expert on this battle, in a month's time, i gained some measure of peace. so instead, i decided to embrace my non-expert role and take what is a more impressionistic look at the meaning and memory, or lack thereof, of the vicious and in many ways, fruitless battle of cold harbor. so i'll begin by asking you a question rhetorically. what is it that sticks in our collective memory about the battle of cold harbor? well, for many, if not most of us, if we're pressed to come up with only one thing that characterizes this engagement, it might simply be this. death. this is not gettysburg or shiloh, or even the seven days. here we don't think of gallant

charges, tactical successes, or feats of individual bravery. we think of death. we think of the two waves of u.s. troops who launched themselves uselessly against deeply entrenched confederates and were mown down in staggering numbers. we think of the four days in which the wounded moaned and screamed for help in no man's land as they died, parched, in pain, afraid. and we think of that photograph. do you know the photograph i mean? in the photograph, a litter sits on the ground. its bearer kneels behind it. addressing the camera with a steely gaze. in the background, four more men are stooped at their labors. these five are the living actors in this scene.

but they are not the actors who draw our attention, who make this john reiki photograph one of the most haunting and macabre of the civil war. no, what draws our attention is not the living. it is the dead. how can we not look in this photograph into the hollow, staring eye sockets of the five skulls that confront us? we're riveted to them as the very representation of death. only by tearing our eyes away from the skulls can we begin to make out the rest of the scene. the horrifying, disembodied mass of bone, clothing, and equipment, composed of parts of who knows how many human bodies. in almost a coda of death, we last notice of what looks like the remains of a leg dangling, jarringly from the litter. boot still attached. the photograph sears into the brain.