think that lee can catch them in the wilderness. but lee realizes he has to hold that line up did the river. this is some 50 odd miles north of richmond and so, he feel has has to hold that line otherwise he will be driven back to the confederate capital and find himself ensconced in the earth works and entrenchmentes around richmond and petersburg and is unable to maneuver. so lee's goal is to maintain his flexibility and his maneuverability. so what lee does is to attack grant in the wilderness and divides his army into three parts and launches a three-pronged attack. the battle is brutal and goes on for 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 and the wilderness catches on fire and some of the most brutal scenes of the war take place but at the end of the two days, grant finds himself

stymied. lee is any a powerful position and grant can't break through. what does he do? maneuvers. he pulled the army of the potomac ought of the wilderness and goes to the spotseslvania courthouse and then lee has to come out from the wilderness and fight him on opened ground. this is a tactical maneuver aimed at pulling lee from his strong entrenchmentes. the army of the potomac shifts south, a drama take point in the war because up to this point, whatever union generals had been trounced in the battle as bad as lee had defeated grant and in the wilderness they always retreated but grant moved south to the court house and lee gets awe finger of his army in front of grant and blocks him and there's brutal fighting in places with names like the mule shoe and the bloody age that will goes on for over a week, will be 10 days and then finally

grant realizes he can't break through there so grant maneuvers again. he pulls the union army out from spots vain yeah courthouse and send the finger out on a big looping march hoping to entice lee to come out so he can pounce on him and that doesn't work. a race to the river, the next defensible position 20 miles north of rich hand and the confederate forces take up position. by doing this, each wing of the 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 and part on that side. lee realizes at that point, that he can strike either half of this divide union army with his

force and have parody of numbers that's unable because at this point lee falls ill and had has bad diarrhea and his subordinate command is falling apart and according to his aides he's there at the river, lying in his tent saying we must strike them a blow and not let them pass. we must strike them a blow but he cannot strike that blow. grant finally realizes that the trap that he's fallen into. throws up earth works and then we see the two armies cheek by seoul as one of the union aides, like two schoolboys facing each other across earth works, the confederates in a wedge-shaped formation and the union army in a wedge shaped formation larger than facing inward and they stay for two days and grant comes up with another idea. maneuver, of course. what he wants to do now is to

pull out from the river and do it overnight before lee understands what's happening and swing down the river systems to the east. this will take him to the river and then where the north anna joins with other rivers and he'll aim for the crossings around hanover town and nelson's bridge and that will put him 17 miles from richmond and down river from lee and then he can make a sharp dash to the confederate capital and slice off the confederate supply lines and finally get the victory that he's been attempt to get. if night of may 26th, they pull the army in the cover of the night, and he heads off to the crossings. lee has no idea what's going on until the next morning and then discovers the federals are gone. the union force makes its march

and crosses at hanover town and part of the crossing at nelson's bridge and now finds itself on the south side of the river ready to march toward richmond. a dramatic things happens with the calvary. lee knows is now getting reports as to where grant is showing up but he needs to send out a force the reckon order and found faptd out what the federals are. jeb stuart, the confederate calvary commander has been killed. sheraton headed south during the fights at the courthouse and kraun stuart after him and he had been mortalry wounded at the battle of yellow tap h tavern on may 11th so he puts in charge, temporarily, a south carolina general, wade hampton, distinguished himself mighting

will. what lee decides to do is to find a force to find where the federals are. and grand and meade decide to send a force to find out where the confederates are. and so on the morning of may 28th, with the union army poring across the river, phil sheraton starts a force out in the direction of lee. lee has now pulled out from the north anna and accepteds this calvary force under wade hampton towards where he thinks the federals might be. and the two of them, of course, encounter each other at a place called haw's shop near salem church, a place that the haw shop area and in recent times hassle been renamed after a bob -- who introduced me mere and i had now called studly. these a massive calvary fight

that occupies most of may 28th. the confederates commanded by wade hampton, basically, get off of their horses, throw up field works and fight dismounted. a series of attacks are launched by general sheraton. 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 so this fight goes on all day until towards the end of the day general george armstrong custer is able to break the impasse overruns portions of hampton's line and confederate's fall back and is night fall comes across hanover county. it's clear that the federals have driven wade hampton's calvary back. who won this battle? well, if you count winning battles who occupied the field, clear live phil sheraton has done that but if you gage who

won or loss by whose goals. >> reporter: achieved were clearly wade hampton won. he had screened the army of northern virginia. sheraton 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 also picked up some union infantry and was able to learn grant's location so this was really the first meaningful engagement up to the fight at cold harbor. lee zhidecides to tang a strong defensive line may 28th and early the next day. if you look at this river and you look at rich mopped, the next defensivable line below there is the creek. a marshy high-banked small stream and lee decides to take up a line along the river.

so during the last part of may 28th, all night and into the next day, the confed army of non-proliferation virginia moves into place. what happens on may 29th? grant has now pulled his calvary, phil sheraton's men back to the rear so they can guard the burr burgeoning yunel onsupply house. what they decide to do is basically send out the whole union army to look for lee. and so haratio writes and they move down the road and gets down here the creek and then swings sort of upriver e. the union cease second corp, hancock's boys, come down and set up position near the modern-shelton house. and at union corps form in the rear with general warren

shifting down yet further downstream on the creek. so the 29th is a day. big thought in the mind of both the union and federal and union and confederate commanders with respect to reinforcements. grant has learned that his two supporting aermtsless. the one in the shenandoah valley and the one moving on richmond hat just been defeated. the force in the shenandoah valley was defeated by a handful of vmi cadets. they were definitely defeated. general butler moving up the james river was defeated by general beauregard and another the force of confederates all 06 this happening on may 15th and may 16th. so grant realizes his supporting armies won't get their job done and decides to draw

reinforcements from them. he asked general butler to send him smith's 18th corp so around the 28th of may baldy smith starts at white harbor and he's coming by boat. quite an operation. baldy smith, takes his 18th corp from an area called city point in the bermuda hundred area near st. petersburg and come down the james river, and swing around and come up the york and into then finally land by boats into the white house landing. that takes a few days and the men don't arrive until the 30th of may. lee also is looking for re-enforinforcement reinforcements. general breckenridge m is poring down here in this direction and he breaches the army of northern virginia and takes up a position on the creek. and lee also positioned --

petitions richmond for repen forcementes from that area because now general butler is out of the picture that should free up some troops and a decision is made to send him general hoax's division. so on the 29th these various reinforcements will generally be moving into this area. may 30th is a being a day as we move toward cold harbor. if you look at the map, here's the river. below it, the creek and then there's two roads just below the creek. one of them was called shady grove road, near a church and down wloe 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 fifth corp has crossed the creek and is on his side of the creek. this is lee's chance to catch a undetached part of the army of the potomac and wipe it out. basically, warren is sitting by himself. so lee gives the new job to the new head of his second core, juble early. and he has planned to put it together with anderson's first corp. anderson is going to attack down the shady grove road, which is what warren's men are, and at the same time early will drop down to old church road and attack in the same direction and then swing north into the underbelly of the soldiers so this is a two-pronged attack. things start off well. they charge down the old church ride and manage the drive the federals back in that area, many pennsylvania yaps from the pennsylvania reserve ls, and

some heavy arrest untilerists. and then they decide to charge north into the underbelly of warren's main force. where, though, is anderson? anderson, it turns out, is not stemmed off. picket's decided that warren is too strongly entrenched in and is sort of backed up and stopped so without this kind of support, this be attack is few until. it's a slaughter. the brigade headed by willis is massacred by warren's men and union artillery replacements and it's a massive the defeat for the army of northern virginia. lee is quite upset. war remember is happy. and, fight breaks out between early anderson each writing letterers to each other explain what the defeat is the fault of

the others. what does that add up to? they now realize that this army of northern virginia has lost its punch. the men that warren had defeated, one of their most inexperienced union generals is stonewall jackson's old boys. the confederate's second cow. it had been unable to aunch an effective attack against an inferior force. the army of northern virginia was a defeated entity. eyes shifted south of the shady grove road to a place called old, cold harbor. old cold harbor is a place where several roads k5i78 together. from white house landing, roads that ran to rich hand and roads that ran dh one fr way from the armies. lee knew the 18th core under baldy smith was headed that bay.

he got reports from scouts along the james river. he wanted to find out what was going on. he sends out a calvary force out that way and they are driven back. not only did that the increase lee's belief that the federals are definitely headed that way and baldy smith is planning some kind of attack. lee realizes if the federals can take this intersection they're below the pleaer training in of his army and attack him in the flank or they could go ahead and take richmond. so this little obscure intersection becomes a critical piece of 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 calvarymen who made this excursion through coal harbor and they are set reinforcements from the calvary division and lee urges that hockey and the men from richmond hurry up and as the morning passes the men start to appear. the federal calvary commanders realize the importance of taking old hl coal harbor intersection. general custer talks it through with his commander and they launch an attack against old cold harbor and ultimately rouded along with a group of north carolina boys came in the foreof his division and they are driven back to an area near where we are right now. so now, by the end of the 31st of may, 150 years ago today.

old cold harbor is in union hands and being hold but kwp oncalvary. grant and lee each realize the importance of this. old cold harbor has become the focus. and some lee decides to shuttle more troops here. hoax men are pulling up. what lee does is to have anderson the head of the -- to march down cold harbor as fast as possible to sport the pokes men, dm here. as far as the federal men are concerned he's to hurry with the 18th core and the general horatio wright is to take his sixth core and swing it behind the union forces and return to cold harbor as well. so almost exactly 24 hours. and 150 years ago, to this

moment, if we're here at the spot where we are right now, we'd have union calvary at old cold harbor. hoax men performing where we are. georgia boys under coal and johnson hey good's south carolinians buttressing him and we'd be in the burr johning confederate line. during the darkness of tonight there would be the tramp of soldiers on either side of the insfan tripouring here into the old cold harbor. sunrise on june 1. the head of anderson's first corp starts to march down into this area. it reaches an area known as the allison house. you'll see it on the old maps.

ander son decides he's going to launch a two-prowlinged reconnaissance. he wants to have hope move down this cold harbor road and he, himself, will follow a path from the allison house over towards old cold harbor, via beulah church. anderson's for foreray and laurence kit, one of the south carolina fire eaters had come to richmond and brought with him a new regimen called can 20th south carolina and it was huge. had about 800 people in it. it was called by the other soldiers the 20th south carolina core because it was so big. confederates were not used to seeing regimens of this size. lawrence kit one testify fire eaters in the success but had no

experience fighting virginia style. but he had a lot of political clout and was put in charge of the by dpad formerly headed by colonel -- a brigade of south carolinians so that was the one that was given the command for old cold harbor. it was a disaster. kit marked us forward riding his horse. soldier said he looked like a knight of old. custer's men are there and with their seven-shot car beams and their eyes light up as they see what's coming at them and they wait until the confederate forces get close amd open fire. it's a massive fire. forces are routed. anderson falls back and ultimately takes up awe position to the north of where hoax' men

radio. between them is a stream, marked on all of the park service has beens now, as bloody run. it wasn't called it pack then around i had would divide hoax men from anderson's men who are forming a line to their north. the anderson is supposed to be coordinating the efforts here. he has a confederate brigade plug that gap for a by the but as who ratio writes. federals, start to pull into place south of the road and he pulls the south carolinians out of place and tax them on to the south end of the confederate line so this ravine is undefended. a weak spot in their position. what happens on the union side? the union sixth core under who ratio wright fills their below us and folds right to the front of directly across from uses are

elements from general you cities's brigade and general emory upton, one of the best brigade commanders of the army of the potomac. his men are looking pretty much across at us. north of them are ball did smith's men recently alived in prich monday filling in north of this big ravine and stream. up on the's force is interesting. in recent weeks. soldiers have been brought down from the defenseness of washington and baltimore. these men were called heavy arrest untilerists. they had very little experience. upton was re-enforced with a regimen called "the second

second cut heavy artillery." the colonel was interested in having his men prove themselves and volunteered to lead in the front line so upton will form his brigade in four lines. the first three lines will be the heavy arrest til kansareska artilleryists. and then the yunel onforces come streaming forward. if you walked across on some of the tours, they take heavy losses. upton, himself, crouched behind trees and according to some accounts was fires must muskets and it's unusual to see a brigadier general this close to fighting. kellogg is killed. many of his men are shot down but some of them manage to make it to the confederate works.

a group of six-corp soldiers unury ket's division and they find themselves on the flank of both hoax anderson's men on the other side. so now, the confederate line is broken. massive fighting takes place here, back and forth, huge deeds of valor. but by nightful, the union 40su forces have managed a few breakthroughs. night fall brings an end to the fighting and union forces pull back some what in many places. other places the confederates doop back some. what does it all add up too? something like 2200 union casualties in that assault on june 1 at the end of the day. something like 1,000 confederate casualties. in union headquarters with this was viewed as a massive victory.

definitely it's clear the fight is out of lee's army. if there had only been a few more hours of daylight or more troops here the confederate army could have been brought to their kneetion and that would have been a breakthrough. that would have been tend. that's the thinking at union headquarters. well, that night, both lee and. union commanders start poring more troop into this area. basically, abandoning the line of creek. on the union side, general hancock is ordered to march his second corp to cold harbor and tack on to the lower end of the line getting ready for a massive assault to take place on june 2, the next day. on this side, lee, of course, orders his men to shift and brec j rej is to shift down below hoax and portions of -- two division, are to shift down behind them and tack on to the

lower end of the cobb fed rat line. so these lines are spending the entire battle is shifting down here to cold harbor. grant realized that he was -- the idea of a mobile campaign. the last thing he wanted to do was to be stuck in earth works at cold harbor. the confederate position is anchored towards the creek. and down towards the chick hom knee river. no way to flank his position. the way grant saw it the army had been re-enforced somewhat but there were a lot more reinforcements that kogd come so now was the time to make an attack before lee could re-enforce his lines and finally, richmond was only 7 or 8 miles to the rear so if he

could break through the confederate works he could take richmond and the confederate army would have to fall back on the river and no better situation than to have the enemy with the river to his back. this looked like a perfect time to launch an assault. politically, it was a good time as well. the nominating convention in baltimore was going to convene in the next week or so. what betterment for president abraham lincoln than the final demise of the army of northern virginia. and finally, the virginia summers. the soldiers with the army of the potomac had fought on these fields during the seven days campaign and knew that the this was no place to be with the fooer fee feverers and disease and suffering of the summer. now is the time to break through the army of northern virginia. let's do it the next day. but it didn't happen the next day, as often happens this these

things plans went awry. general hancock's men were slower than expected. problems with directions and roads that didn't pan out the way the leaders thought he would. hancock's men weren't in the position until the end of the day. same problem with other soldiers marching down into this area. so grant decided he would launch this big attack the next day, june 3rd, at first light. well, that was all that robert e. lee needed to prepare. by now, the confederate forces were in praise. they were able to dig in and they built here at cold harbor, some of the most effective earth works that they built during the entire war. they had time to not only cite their liable along high ground, they dug the entrenchmentes and threw dirt up in front of the entrench. s they built and put their head log into place and cleared fields of fire and they learned

in these previous battles how to do overlapping fields of fire and how to throw obstacles to slow an attacking force. some of the engineers went in front and were able to drive stake into the ground at places mark off the yardage so the artillery would know how to set the fuses on their shells making this cold harbor line into to an impenetratable abc bastion. if he didn't attack now he knew there would be a stale mate. he sent out orders but unfortunately, regularses between meade and grant had deteriorated at this point, badly. meade viewed grant as having very little military talent. viewed him as a man that threw men against earth works and

often for very little purpose. this was not his style of warfare. grant, i might say, was also becoming very disaffected with meade who he considered to be too cautious and at this stage the men were not even traveling together. they set up their headquarters at different places. this was like a dysfunctional family. and, of course, it's going to be the soldierless of the army of the potomac that pay for this dysfunction. meade does very little to prepare for the assault. there are no orders sent out that effectively coordinate the various army corps that set us exactly how the attack is going to take place. very little. there are many stories that have come can down about cold harbor. one of the stories that i'm sure most of have you have heard is that union troop who have been attacking the confederate earth works for the last several weeks knew they were probably going to get killed and they would write their names on paper and pin it to their jaekts so their bodies

could have been identified. i doubt that that really happened here at cold harbor. i've checked through the contemporary sources and the letters from the men and none of them mentioned that. the only place that that story is mentioned is by horace porter. it was one of grant's aides and he wrote in a memoir that he have produced many years after the war that's filled with literary inventions that i suspect that's one of his many literary inventions. it's true that soldiers of the army of the potomac had done that before an earlier battle. this would be in november of 1863. but there's no evidence that that actually happened 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 goes forward or parts of it do. that's the sad thing about the battle of cold harbor. down on the lower end of the

battlefield, general hancock's second corp punches forward and attacks the confederate works. at one spot they make a breakthrough. where general breckenridge is positioned but lee has a lot of reserves. one myth about cold harbor is leaf didn't have any reserves. his line was thin. that's simply not true. some parts had an entire divisions with hind them and that was the situation down down the lower end of the battlefield where hancock made his attack. the confederate reserves pull in and drive hancock's men out and the union second corp finds nits an untenable position. men spread across the fields, wounded men, men not one wounded but can't get back to their lines throw up dirts, digging under can teens, all the horrors of cold harbor take place along hancock's line south of where we are right now. in this area what the union's

sixth corp was to make its attack, very little happened. as a matter of fact, one of the confederate generals near where we were 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 now knew that the confederates had two more days to get ready for them. and then they started to dig. the account of soldiers on this part of the battlefield reflect that as well as the low casualties in the union's sixth corp. and to the north, the union 18th corp would be, attacked. they pored forward and they had a great idea. send the men forward in columns. they basically go forward this columns, down the next ravine over. it's called the middle reveen. they figured that way he would

have enough mass to punch through the confederate line. good idea but it wouldn't work this time because the confederate first corp had plenty of time to strengthen us worth works and they realized that ravines were ways they could break through so they positioned artillery along those ravines and had dug entrenchmentes there so basically, this union column would be feeding into what military men called. a reentrant angle. say -- like a pencil going in and getting ground to pieces. that's what happened to smith's 18th -- men were slaughtered. in a short time the 18th corp was stymied. men crawling behind the who dids of dead minimum and the fields were basically total killing fields. evander law, one of the

confederate generals in that part of the field later wrote those famous words -- it's not war. it's murder. and up in that part of the field it looked just like that. the union fifth and ninth core way up to the noern end of this battlefield did very little i until a few hours passed. and later in the afternoon, we'll try yet, once again. so this massive attack at cold harbor is really a disjointed set of attacks by the union army corp with very little support from each other except to break through. a bad idea and definitely very poor live executed. i've been over these battlefields and done walks on these battlefields with men who have actually led men in battle. and had the honor one time to do a staff ride with general 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 this was executed? and the answer that i've gotten from people much more experienced in this than myself is that they respect general grant's decision that this was the time to make this atake. that's the hard decision an army commander or a spreech commander has to make. the politics and the situation of the army and the expectations of perhaps, more confederate reinforcements made this a reasonable time to make that kind of assault and they don't fault grant for having deciding to do what he did here. what they do fault is the total breakdown in command, obviously, meade as army commander was responsible for making sure that the coordination was there and the support was there and he didn't do that. and of course as many of you pointed out, grant also had an obligation to make sure that was done by his subordinate, general

immediate. so there's plenty of fault to go around. 1234678d grant later said this attack at cold harbor was an attack he wished had never been made. i find it interesting that he wrote that in the passive voice. he didn't say i wish i had never made it he simply said, i wish it was an attack that hadn't been made. i always wonder whether or not that's a little side swipe on his part at general meade. in any ecentth events, by noon, grant called off the attack. and that was the end of the famous attack at cold harbor. in later years, hi store yanls have written about the battle and talk the about the casualties that took place and you see all sorts of inflated stories that the attack on june 3th, the biggest assaults with produced 15,000 casualties in five minutes or -- when i was

working on my book on the harbor i spent a loft of time investigating what with were the casualties here. they were table but what were they? >> when you go through the casualty reports from the unions actually enkaemged, the casualties are about bhaf of what's generally claimed somewhere in the range of 3,500 during ta morning set aassaults. over a period of several hours. so the brutal attack at cold harbor which goes down to civil war lure is number seven. bad as 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. launched in the wilderness and

at spotsilvania courthouse. over the next day or two, the army's jockeyed for position and the fields were scenes of absolute who rour. wounded men lay ill the cross the fields. unwounded men lying there but unable to get food or water. sharp shooters on each side, killing anything that moved, anybody that moved. there's 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 hoot one of those -- it was one of the worst scenes you can imagine in the american civil war. scenes of bravery and. several acounts of men that managed to work their way out

into the field and drag their friends back. some of the injured colonels were dragged back as well. 2, 3 days after the big assault has entertainen place, june 5th, general hon cock went to general meade and asked them if there could be some truce so wounded men would be warned that the be brought back in from his line. this was recommended to grant, grant made the quest of lee and for the next two days up until june 7th, pigered back and forth about exactly how this truce is going to be done and what it can be local or generalized. it tangs a long time for me sams to go back and foort between the lines and tentd of the day, is a truce declared and for a few hours the soldiers from each army that we're in today, and 'bring back the bodies.

because they're very few wounded left alive. in by many accounts there's five or six and the rest are all bodies. would also be treated, if we were here that day, to the side of soldiers from each side trading tobacco and coffee. there are accounts of the union soldiers moving up toward the confederate lines talking with confed moderates, shaking hands with them, 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. and now these men that were just talking before are trying to kill each other again. the army stayed here add h at cold harbor until june 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 and jockeying. there's some assaults. i would tell you what happened but i haven't quite finished my next book which covers those battles so i don't want to give away all the details. grant realizes now as he had at the wilderness and at north anna he can't break through here at cold harbor 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 calvary under phil sheraton make a raid up to the north. cut off some is of the rail lines. maybe even move up into the shenandoah valley and take places like lynchburg and cut off the james river canal. then take the army of the potomac and pull it ought of cold harbor and swing it south, cross the james and then that army in combination with butler's army and the 18th corp

can take petersburg, cut the supply line to the army in northern virginia and finally, defeat lee. union plan, works like clockwork. sheraton heads off open his raid and it ends fairly disastrously but it serves its purpose for the time and on the morning of the 13th of june, lee and his men look across and discover that the union earth worst are empty. earth works are empty. grant pulled his army away without leafy guring out what had happened. the union army swings south, down to the james river. grant intends to cross and lee does not understand what grant means to do. lee thinks what grant might be preparing to do is to swik back towards richmond north of the james river so lee states here at the cold harbor, sends some of his soldiers to the south but doesn't do a major shift because

he's uncertain as to what grant will do. as you civil war historians know, attacking at pittsburgh. the confederates manage to reach the town in time and a vigorous defense and the war will basically deinvolve into a siege with many big battles but a singh that lasts for the next ten months. i'm often asked, who is it that won this battle at cold harbor? and that won't be this big campaign between grant and lee? and i have to say, if you look at this in terms of individual battles, lee had up thor hand in the wilderness, 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 been vied to say that grant was the winner of the campaign. grant's goal was to neutral

isley's army in northern virginia and after some 40 odd days of horrendous fight he can did just that. and lee is looked no the entrenchmentes at petersburg and lee he's goal had been to hold his line at the river and after these series of battles he had been driven back to richmond so he, too, realized that he had failed in his goal. casualties were horrendous. something like 3,000 confederates during the campaign were captured, killed or wounded. something like 55,000 union soldiers killed, cal sured or wounded. 88,000 americans, all tolled, in something like 42 or 43 days of fighting and maneuvering. if you are to ask, well, who lost the most? obviously, the yun i don't believe forces lost more men but they were the ones generally on the offensive. they were launching the atalks.

if you ask which army lost the highest percentage of men the conclusion would be reversed. lee started the campaign with about of 5,000. he lost slightly more than 50% of the men he had started with. and grant starting with 120,000 and lost a little bit less than 50% of the men he started with. so in that sense grant wins the numbers game. depends on how you count it i enjoyed chatting with you today. some of you have questions. i believe i've been asked to talk to you for a little while. i'm like the one supposed to told back the tides. i'm supposed to keep you happy until the sun goes down enough for these folks to light candles and let you walk around the battlefield carrying candles so i'd be glad to take a question or two if that would help or whatever you'd like to do,

david. >> what's that? >> have tom this stopped other people from being bored to some extent. keep me awake and make me want to go on longer to enhance the moment. if i was asked would i do it again, the answer is probably, yes. i would have quit earlier, possibly, hoping to get away with the whole thing.

easy for me to saw. not very nis nice for my children to hear. it sounds irresponsible if i say, yeah, i'd do all that again to you but the truth is, it would be hypocritical for me to say no, i would have never touched the stuff if i had known. because i did though. everyone knows. >> the soviet system in eastern europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems that we saw at the end begin at the very beginning. i spoke already about the attempt to control all institutions and control parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems that when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential disdense everywhere. if you tell all artists to paint the same way and ones i want to paint another way you made him into a political dissident. >> if you want to subsidize housing in this country and we want to talk about it and the pop populous agrees it's

something we should subsidize put it on the sheet and make it clear and make everyone aware of how much it costs. but when you deliver it through these third-party third-party e fannie mae and freddie mac, through a company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing home ownership. >> christopher hitchens, ann applebauh and gretchen morganson are a few stories in c-span's "sundays at eight." now available at your favorite book seller. up next, a look at the conclusion of the overland campaign. civil war scholar james robertson describes union general ulysses s. grant's crew said to, "destroy the southern confederacy." that was at the last major battle of the overland campaign that robertson says confederate general robert e. lee earned his greatest and final victory of

the war. well, good evening. my name is rick raines. i'm the pastor here at the fairmount christian church. we are really sad that you're 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. i've been asked i'd simply begin our evening with a word of innovation. please bow with me. father in heaven, we come to this place tonight not to celebrate war, but it 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 neot repeat the lessons that divide bus but what makes us indeed, strong. i thank you for the national par service and their very hard work

in bringing this even to our community, to our state and to our nation. lord, i'm most grateful that you allowed us to be part of this. blessed 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 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

wilderness, 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 morale 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

in around the virginia cross roads known as cold harbor. grant's unrelenting hammering of lee's veteran 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 forced march in the night without any chance to get any supper. so weak he could scarcely walk. 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 battlefield park. and i'd 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 battlefield. 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 in 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 pamunkey rivers, the totopotomy creek, at haws shop, bethesta church, and near here at the cold harbor crossroads. tonight we will pause to ponder the significance 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 supervisors and rue harris, the county administrator, for their assistance. we could not have done this without the support of fairmount church. this evening is a perfect example of that partnership which we had in place several weeks ago when we knew rain might be a possibility. their shuttles, or their parking lot provided perfect places for our shuttles to have the tours emanate from. so without fairmount church, this certainly could not have happened. our commemoration of the battle topotomy creek would not have been possible without the work of our newest partner, the rural plains foundation, a friends group who is working hard to

expand the profile of the rural plains unit. i think catherine patterson, our cheryl and president of the new foundation 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, and 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 2nd corps, and as depleted as they are, they're here tonight to support this final program. 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 remain available to teach and 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 lifelong 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? [ 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 farm over the years. often graciously allowing our enthusiastic groups eager to see this h 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 responsible way. the adams family through many generations have treated their portion of the battlefield with great respect and gentleness. 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 weeping? over time war relics would be unearthed by the adams' plow. through my grandfather's youth, like his father and grandfather, it 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 they had left in the spot they fell that june day. for years, picking a lead bullet off the ground was pretty commonplace. 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 toward shared goals to strengthen the story of the old dominion and how it is told. one of those colleagues is dr. paul levengood. dr. leven swgood is president a 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 include 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: catalyst of commerce for four centuries" published in 2007. that was the official commemorative project of the virginia chamber of commerce. paul is married, has three children and continues to steer the virginia historical society into the 21st century with a steady and imaginative hand. he's been to every state historical society except for florida and 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 about this event, which 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 you had sleepless nights, dave, 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. at least it did to mine. i can't remember when i first saw the picture, and i certainly did not know where cold harbor was at the time. i'm sure i thought it was a port town somewhere in virginia. i may not remember in which book i first saw the photograph, but i know that it immediately and lastingly linked the words cold harbor and death in my mind. in subsequent years, i came to read more about the events of the spring of 1864 that culminated at cold harbor, that

deadly slog from the rap dan to the james that saw the u.s. suffer 50,000 casualties, in the confederacy, another 30,000-plus, the bloodiest 6 weeks of the war. i learned of the thousands who fell in the early morning on june 3rd. i do know there are differing schools of thought about what that number was. i learn youulysses s. grant would harbor terrible regrets about his decisions at cold harbor to the very end of his days. and a learned that even in a war in which the military and the public had become accustomed to horribly long casualty lists, cold harbor stood out for its bloodiness and its pointlessness. in a mental connection i can't quite explain, as i sought to find an angle for these remarks by searching my mind of what i knew of the battle of cold harbor, a book i read several years ago came to mind. it's called "the war of the world," a provocative work by

the equally provocative british historian, neil ferguson. his premise is that the 20th century, with its two global conflicts and a series of more than a dozen others, that each caused more than a million deaths, was the most violent and deadly in human history. in quite convincing fashion, ferguson lays out evidence that helps explain why this was so. now ferguson's book makes no mention of the american civil war at all. in fact, it does not pay much attention to events in the 19th century united states, period. i suppose that i may simply be trying to connect a time period in the 19th century to one that i know better in the 20th century. but the more i thought about it, the more it struck me that the carnage here helped set the stage for the almost ceaseless fighting that would cost tens of millions of lives in the 20th century. not just in the terrible numbers of casualties.

the very nature of fighting here also seemed to portend the way we would fight in the modern era. here at cold harbor, as the culmination of the meat grinder that was the overland campaign, humanity was afforded a glimpse of the future. a glimpse, and a warning. a warning of what war could be. brutal, industrial, blood-letting, that measured progress not in miles gained, but in inches. and not in winning a given spot of land, but in inflicting more damage on your opponent than you yourself absorbed. in a word, attrition. i think you can make a real case that something fundamental changed -- sheer here on this plot of land, this small crossroads less than ten miles from richmond.

in fact, i ask you to consider in some ways modern war and how humans view the process of killing one another emerged out of those trees in the early morning hours of june 3rd, 1864. now, this past weekend, i attended, along with bud and maybe several others of you, the latest in the virginia sesquicentennial excellent set of annual conferences. this year's focus was on the civil war in a global context. it was very interesting to hear about the international perceptions of the fighting that convulsed this nation. in one session, the presenter observed that with very few exceptions, europe viewed the events of the u.s. civil war as an aberration, and learned few lessons from it. as it turns out, that ignorance proved very costly. i'm struck the fighting at cold harbor took place almost exactly 50 years before the outbreak of world war i in europe. with advances in weaponry, the

sort of frontal assault on entrenched positions that we see here at cold harbor in world war i became far more lethal, lethal on an almost unimaginable scale. it's always tempting to take a thesis or a theory and ride it to exaggerated and unsupportable extremes. it would, of course, be foolish to sug if the british and french militaries or if the german, for that matter, had taken the terrible example of cold harbor to har that human kind would have been spared the horrors. however, i can't help but wonder whether that tactical thinking would have changed if those had consulted one of the few survivors of the 2nd connecticut heavy artillery or confederate brigadier general evander law who famously described what he saw as not war, it was murder.

would they have repeated the mistakes that we saw here among the pines at cold harbor? would the course of the first world war and perhaps by extension the course of the 20th century been different? would that generation of potential european leaders who perished in the muddy trenches of france and belgium have been able to check the continent's slide into totalitarianism and genocide? as a historian, i'm trained to resist speculation. we all know that what if games are imprecise and dangerous. but i have to say in this case, i don't really care it seems worth a moment of reflection. and a touch of regret. don't you think?

thank you very much. [ applause ] >> today, the name cold harbor inevitably conjures up images of entrenchments. we immediately think of field fortifications, of mile after mile of heaped-up earth snaking across the hanover county countryside. life in the trenches was a miserable existence, with its mud, filth, broiling heat and ever-present danger. but the soldiers of both armies appreciated those barriers of dirt. to better protect their own lives in a deadly environment. and as one georgia soldier explained, fighting on the defensive from behind those fortifications had its advantages. this campaign is the first in which our troops have had the privilege of fighting behind

protection of any kind, it is fun for them. they lounge about with the accoutrements on and their gun close at hand, laughing and talking until someone passes it up or down the line, look out, boys, here they come! every man springs to his place and waits until the enemy gets close up, when the rear rank fires by volley. then the front rank. after which each one fires soon as he can reload. some load for others to shoot. each working rapidly, but calmly until the enemy are repulsed. >> some survivors, the union attacks at cold harbor wrote letters home, often mixing patriotism with anger, sorrow, and hope. that odd compound, perhaps reflects what the cumulative effect of constant campaigning and heavy losses could do to the mind, and the heart of a soldier. joseph barlow of the 23rd

massachusetts j a, in a june 6th better to his wife is a classic example. the 23rd has lost a large number of men and officers. i am write lg all the time to heart-rending cries, but it cannot be helped. though many has fallen and more must before we can take richmond. we are now within ten miles of the rebel sodom. i can only thank god that i have been spared yet. this is a bloody struggle, and may it soon be over. the weather has been awfully hot and the dust enough to kill any man, let alone the fighting. but now it has begun to rain, thank god. oh, if those men at home, had only one spark of feeling for the poor soldiers, they would rush to arms and help them to end this war.

>> it's now my great honor to introduce our keynote speaker. more than 40 years ago, i began my career as a seasonal historian at the chancellorsville battlefield. one afternoon in 1973, a group stopped by the visitors center and the leader hopped out of a bus and began to tell the untimely death of stonewall jackson and brought nearly everybody in the group to tears. i asked the fellow standing next to me, who is this guy? i was told with great reverence, that this is the famous civil war historian bud robertson from virginia tech. well, i knew the rest of the story, because as they say, because i had read and reread his book "the stonewall brigade" before i had arrived at chancellorsville that summer. i also had the good fortune of attending virginia tech and over the years, dr. robertson has been an incredible inspiration to me and many others interested in civil war history.

the books he has written cover an entire shelf, but the time he's spent mentoring young historians, both in academic and public history is immeasurable. i'll share a quick story. dr. robertson is also an excellent and serious editor. he would generously mark up manuscripts, transforming them from white to almost entirely red pages with his red pencils. his graduate students found buying christmas presents for him was easy. a box of red pencils and he always put them to good use. for 44 years, dr. robertson was the alumni distinguished professor of history at virginia tech, and i must ask how many in this church congregation today attended his classes of civil war history over the years? that's wonderful.

i was with the good fortune to attend many of his lectures. i was always amazed in that mcbride auditorium, for those virginia tech alumni seated here, that hundreds would fill that auditorium to overflowing, with students from every department including athletes, scientists, architects, mathematicians, all spellbound in the way that dr. robertson made history come alive.opinion more teachers like him in the public school system, we would not question why students don't understand or air about american history. [ applause ] >> today, dr. robertson serves as a key member of the virginia commission that was established to commemorate the 150th anniversary of virginia's participation in the civil war. under his leadership and guidance, the commission has

been successful beyond all imagination. i'm honored to present to you, dr. james i. robertson jr. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you very much. i would say david was one of my better students and i do remember that. i think the worst student i ever had was a football player who drifted into that course that i taught. and he did not take the mid term exam. and on the final, he failed it flatly. so i gave him an "f" on the course. he came to see me and he said, dr. robertson, i don't believe i tef deserved an "f" in this course. i said, i don't either, but that's as low as the system goes. [ laughter ] i wanted to thank david and the park service for the humbling

invitation to give the keynote on this important anniversary. one of the first axioms you learn in graduate school is simple. any nation that forgets its past has no future. and i'm grateful to you for coming out this evening to remember a point in american history that cannot and must not ever be forgotten, june 3rd, 1864. the civil war became more sophisticated, more advanced, and hence bloodier, as the war years passed. by 1864, seasoned soldiers using rifles and well built earth works, supported by suitable and well-placed artillery, simply could not be dislodged. by any sort of final attack. the fact became indelible, early in june in pine thickets and

open ground only eight miles from richmond. joseph f mufley of the 148th pennsylvania would later declare the assault at cold harbor was an attempt by sheer and furious fighting to force the advantage which march and maneuver had missed. it failed at a cost of life matched by no other 60 minutes in the 4 years of that war. it was in the civil war's third year that general ulysses grant assumed command of all union military forces. he personally was friendly and approachable. but he always seemed to have what one observer called a peculiar aloofness. he liked to be alone and comfortable with his thoughts, and his cigars.

on may 4th, grant unleashed that campaign that would destroy the southern confederacy. union military forces would strike whenever they could, with all the strength they had. federals would keep attacking until confederate resistance collapsed. it was a simple and elementary plan, but it had never been tried before by a union commander. grant made his headquarters with the army of the potomac. his attention would be totally on robert e. lee's forces. other generals had undertaken the same strategy and had met defeat. grant regarded a battle loss as merely a momentary setback. if bested, he intended to reassemble and attack again. and again. and again. until lee's outnumbered army was

forced to play the sort of game it could not win. put another way, in may 1864, the union army stopped playing chess and switched over to checkers. both armies blaired copiously that month. grant took a pounding on a two-day fight in the wilderness. the union general ignored the defeat and began sidling movements to crumple lee's lifeline and turn the southerners away from richmond. so began a deadly game of fight, flight, and fight and flight and fight again. mile by mile, grant kept pushing. 50 miles and 30 days after the start, the two armies were approaching the wilderness, an unpredictable stream whose bites relied on when it had last rained. behind it was richmond.

two bloodies but determine ed hosts gravitated to a place called cold harbor. soldiers found it more bake oven than cold and there was no stream within miles. cold harbor was little more than a dusty but vital intersection of two country roads. as may turned into june, it was obvious to both sides that the escalating skirmishes were reaching a point where full-scale battle was imminent. grant's resolve was as strong as ever. however, his opponent was not in good health. overlooked throughout these last two years is the fact that the war had taken a heavy toll on robert e. lee. then 57, he had suffered already in the war a broken hand, a sprained wrist, rheumatism, recurring diarrhea, and the previous year a massive heart attack for which there was no treatment, cure, or medication.

and these had all sapped lee's strength. as he inspected his lines at the opening of june, lee was not a top traveler. he was riding in a borrowing civilian carriage. he didn't have the strength to ride a horse. nevertheless, lee's soldiers had become champion engineers and diggers. at some points they had had but hours to construct earthworks. at other points they had one to two days, as was the case at cold harbor. and what those johnny rebs had created was not one line of defense but two, and in some cases three lines. lee took advantage of every swell and gully, but probably the most brilliant engineer at that in the war. his lines zigzag on an uneven chain of low hills and ridges. none of them high enough to look frightening, but all of them just high enough to make an ideal killing ground in front.

the union army failed to make adequate reconnaissance at cold harbor. simply put, grant left the strategic details to army commander george meade, and meade left the strategic details to general and chief grant. preparations, therefore, were spotty. the union corps would deliver the assault, yet each was left on its own, making for an thoroughly uncoordinated advance. in addition, the federal front bowed out slightly to advancing units would follow diverging paths and thus expose their flanks to heavy fire. a union colonel asserted afterwards that the assault, quote, would have shamed the cadet in his first year at west point. lee's battle line was seven miles long extending northwest to southeast. by june 2nd, lee's 60,000 troops were more entrenched than at any

point in grant's overland campaign. bitter yanks knew all of these things and that thursday night on june the 2nd, amid a drizzle of rain, one of grant's staff officers came upon a brigade. in the battle scarred 2nd corps. collectively, the men seemed to be making repairs to well-worn uniforms. the officer moved closer. to his shock, veteran soldiers were writing their names and addresses on slips of paper and pinning them to the backs of their shirts so, he said, that their dead bodies might be recognized and their fate made known to their families at home. in the predawn darkness of friday, june the 3rd, it was still raining lightly. survivors of the wet hell at spotsylvania saw a similarity. confederate general porter

alexander noted that, quote, the whole strength of both armies was being put forth against each other at once more completely than ever before or ever hereafter. on this day, everything would go right for lee. cooperation among subordinate commanders was all that he could have wished. lee had little to do with the conduct of his troops. they proved to be as accomplished killers as they were skillful engineers. somewhere around 5:00 a.m. in fits and starts with delays here and there, the uncoordinated union battle started to move. this was no parade ground spectacle search as at fredericksburg and gettysburg. the terrain, vegetation and layout of the southern defensive position quickly threw formations out of line. simultaneous attacks were supposed to be at three points with columns of troops six to eight deep. yet, concentrated and intense

confederate fire broke the assaulting lines to pieces before federals could make any contact with their opponents. the battle quickly disintegrated into dozens of small onslaughts with brigades and even regiments operating alone. one division broke out of line to avoid a swamp that was on nobody's map. hundreds fell in the crossfire. then friendly fire took out other hundreds. and those who survived the night nightmare of cold harbor never forgot what they experienced. an observer said that the narrow columns of attacking federals were shreds, quote, much as a sharpened pencil. insurgents of the 121st new york wrote that on all sides booming cannon and rattling small arms tell us that the angel of death is hovering just over our head. in one of the north carolina brigades, a tarheel soldier

exclaimed the musket fire rained down our lines from left to right like the keys of a piano. musketry and artillery joined in the wild music of the hour. from the start, the battle assumed the characteristics of a slaughter. no one knows how many times union columns attacked. the result was always the same. a billy yank recalled that his advancing comrades instinctively leaned forward, quote, as if they were marching into the face of a hailstorm. and they fell, he added, like rows of blocks pushed over like one striking the other. for the 15th alabama, it was a turkey shoot. those men were firing as fast as they could because lines of soldiers behind the front line were reloading weapons and handing them forward at a steady pace. indeed, alabama colonel william oats wrote bluntly, i could see dust pop out of a man's clothing in two or three places at once where as many balls would strike

him at the same moment. in two minutes, not a federal soldier was standing in our front. cold harbor could not be called a battle, a billy yank concluded. it was simply a butchery. by 6:00 a.m., before the sun had cleared the tree tops, the grand attack ended in disastrous failure. at noon, grant called a halt to the entire operation. yet, fighting continued here and there simply because the two armies were so close to each other they could not let go. grant's first telegram to washington stated, our loss was not heavy nor do i suppose the enemy to have lost heavily. and that's one of the most inaccurate reports in all the civil war history. exact figures can never be known, but grant suffered about 7,000 casualties. five times the losses in lee's army.

at least half of the union kill and wounded fell in the first hour of fighting. number wise, grant's losses in that one hour were equal to and came in the same short period of time as pickett's charge at gettysburg. from any perspective, the attack at cold harbor was a ghastly mistake. not to grant, however. like the wilderness, cold harbor was but a momentary setback in his ongoing offensive against lee. the union general stubbornly refused to admit defeat or even request a truce to bury his dead and retrieve his wounded. four days passed while the countless bodies on the field became in number less wounded and more dead. one observer declared, never before and never again in the civil war were so many wounded soldiers left so long to suffer in plain sight of their

comrades, the enemy, and the buzzards. lee's army was too thin in number and too worn in body to attempt a counterattack. further, there simply was no general capable of executing it. meanwhile, grant puffed on his cigars, whittled on sticks, and thought about the future with that abstracted look on his face. on june 13th, confederate scouts reported that grant had abandoned the cold harbor line and likely was heading southeastward toward the james river to cross over and advance on petersburg. lee gave pursuit. by mid-june at cold harbor, the pine thickets, the open clearings, and indelible scars of battle lay solid.

cold harbor now belonged to history. the battle was lee's greatest triumph and grant's worst defeat. the union commander finally admitted that fact in the last year -- last nine months of his life when he frantically was writing his memoirs. grant said, i've always regretted that the assault at cold harbor was ever made. no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained. what happened on june 3rd, 1864, was a wild chain of doomed charges, most of which were smashed in 10 to 15 minutes, and none of which lasted over a half hour. in all of the civil war, no attack has been broken up as quickly or as easily as this one by the confederates. porter alexander turned the confrontation our last and perhaps our highest tide. it was also robert e. lee's final major victory. cold harbor was the climax to

grant's 1864 overland campaign. never before had armies fought like they did beginning in may. for a solid month, they had not been out of contact. every day somewhere along the lines, there had been action. in four weeks, union losses were averaging 2,000 a day. generals were dead and others wounded. regiments, even brigades, had melted away. soldiers on both sides were bone tired, dirty, oblivious to the stench of rotting horses and men in the humid springtime that swept over virginia. a month's fighting had produced near 60,000 union casualties. roughly two of every four soldiers in the army of the potomac. grant, however, had inflicted

32,000 losses on lee. now after cold harbor, federals still outnumbered confederates by a two-to-one margin. grant had a reservoir of manpower in the north. lee could not replenish his ever-thinning ranks. at cold harbor, lee won only time. even victory was becoming too expensive for the army of northern virginia. monuments that should cover these grounds as thickly as they do elsewhere are absent. preserving as much of the battlefield as possible is difficult because the greed to make money in the present exceeds the gratitude we should have for the past. in the national cemetery here are 1,986 union graves. some 670 stones contain the names of the soldiers.

the other 1,300 graves belong to the family called unknown. my graduate mentor dr. bell wally often told the story of private maddox. the young federal soldier was in one of the last assaults at cold harbor. his regiment was shot to pieces. as his wounded colonel was staggering back across the field, he heard a beckoning call. he looked over and saw private maddox lying on the ground with a gaping wound in his body. the lad was obviously dying. the colonel went to the soldier and bent over and in anticipation of the young volunteer passing along some final words to be conveyed to his family back home. instead, private maddox asked, colonel, is the day ours? is the day ours? and the officer could not bring himself to admit the truth so he lied. yes, my son, he stated, the day

is ours. we have won the victory. then private maddox said, i am willing to die. and he did die. and he lies nearby in the national cemetery with his and he lies nearby in the national cemetery with his unknown siblings. this battlefield stands so that generations can come here and see here and perhaps feel here what brave men did here on behalf of their country. each offered the greatest treasure he had. life. and thousands of them gave their supreme offering in the woods and clearings at cold harbor. we do not have to be an intellectual or even educated to understand the totality of what they bequeath to us. the civil war did not permanently shatter our nation. rather, it was a supreme test of endurance for a young,

struggling country that now stands in blessed unity. you are north and south. you are here together tonight. and here this evening, as americans one and all, we look back with reverence to learn from the greatest teacher any of us can ever have -- history. armed with an understanding of the past, you and i can look forward with common pride and renewed hope to the years yet to come. private maddox would like that. thank you.

>> the overland campaign was the largest and the bloodiest campaign of the entire civil war. both armies lost almost half of their original fighting forces. the casualties were astounding, astounding to soldiers, to generals, and to those left back home. amidst the staggering losses sustained at cold harbor and during the overland campaign, for every soldier killed, wounded or captured, there was a family. a mother, a father, brothers, sisters, wives, sons, daughters that also directly felt that loss. the loss of the men who fell here at cold harbor and on the fields across virginia in the spring of 1864 reverberated through communities across the north and south. the empty chairs at kitchen tables across the country and the gaps in the battle lines and in the camps left indelible impacts on the living left behind.

so, too, did the ideas and beliefs for which so many thousands of men fought and died during that bloody spring. indeed, in spite of and perhaps even in light of the loss of so many lives and the widespread destruction wrought by six weeks of heavy battle, those beliefs and ideas about nation, government, and home became even more deeply enshrined in the hearts and minds of those left to fight on. in those beliefs, we come here tonight to reflect upon and learn from today. >> writing soon after the war with a perspective afforded by hindsight, richmond memoirist sally putnam came to believe in its own unique way, cold harbor had been a landmark event in the

1864 campaign across central virginia. she wrote, the battle of cold harbor forever removed the impression of the demoralization of general lee's army and ended the attempt to take richmond from the north side. the barefooted, ragged, ill-fed rebel army which had been under fire for more than a month had achieved a succession of victories unparalleled in the history of modern warfare. however, putnam also noted the resolution of the union army and its leader, saying the most striking feature in the character of this distinguished commander of the federal army seems to be quiet determination and indomitable perseverance and energy. under similar disappointment, another would have had his courage so shaken that he would gladly have foregone an undertaking that promised so

little fulfillment and success. he had received, from the battle of the wilderness to that of cold harbor, repeated and powerful repulses. his losses in men were unparalleled in the whole history of the struggle, but his perseverance was undisturbed. >> that quiet determination of ulysses grant so evident to a noncombatant in richmond echoed loudly through the fighting men of the union army. when defeat was decisive, as it was at cold harbor, the rank and file gained renewed energy from recognizing grant's tenacity of purpose. the effect on the men was perfectly explained by a federal officer named adams. he wrote that the army of the potomac had literally marched in blood and agony. from the rabadam to the james. all of this fighting has been unsuccessful fighting, hard, brutal, barren pounding. yet, we have a great fighter in grant.

he takes hold of his work as one having confidence in himself and not the least afraid of his adversary. he is bold and takes great risk, thus inspiring confidence in his army. one can see that grant believes in incessant fighting and marching as producing necessary results, not only on his own army but on the enemy. if his army is fought and worked out and exhausted and needs rest, it is not only likely that the enemy, with his smaller numbers, is even more so. and so the moment of greater exhaustion becomes that of the greatest effort. >> the battlefields are quiet and even alluring today. it is a notion that the men who fought here believed in something truly worth suffering and dying for. that draws us to this place. and for each of us as we leave

from here this evening, we depart with the sacred responsibility to remember those who fell here and to ponder each for ourselves how we can properly honor those sacrifices and the legacy of what happened here. to them, we owe a great debt. two years ago, we concluded each of our seven days' battle commemorations with "taps" which we called a salute to the soldiers. we will do so again tonight. it is moving. it is deeply appropriate at this place and at this time. it is for them. ♪

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, that ends our formal program tonight. i want to thank you all for being with us. it doesn't end the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of cold harbor. there are a few more programs to occur, and i believe that the church has been so kind to display a few more of our 16 colored pages of upcoming events and programs, so please take them with you, and we'll certainly be here to answer any questions, and thank you again for making the switch from cold harbor to fairmount, and we are

so grateful to the folks from the church for all they've done for us this last week. again, thank you so much. tonight, "american history tv's" look at the civil war continues with the battle of ft. 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 parks service commemorate the 150s anniversary of the battle of ft. stevens. we'll also tour the battlefields of the may knack kasy and ft. stevens as well as visit surviving forts in the nation's capital. that's tonight at 8:00 p.m.

eastern here on c-span3. coming up next a look at the beginning of the overland campaign, including remarks by civil war scholar james robertson who explains the strategy employed by union general ulysses s. grant against the confederates and how the campaign impacted the war as a whole. this event took place at fredericksburg and spotsylvania national military park in pennsylvania. it's just over an hour. >> as the armies of grant and lee marched in may of 1864, the victory or defeat depended on their efforts. from "the new york herald" april 13th, 1864. "upon the campaign that we are about to engage there depends the greatest issues upon which men ever went into battle. we fight for the principles of free government and for the existence of the nation whose