COLD HARBOR
June 1 - 3, 1864

At the end of May 1864, Grant attempted to move his army around Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to Cold Harbor. On 31st May, a day-long cavalry battle between Sheridan and FitzLee took place and Sheridan managed to take Cold Harbor. He was not convinced he could hold it for long but direct orders from Grant and Meade told him to do his best.
Lee had anticipated Grant's movement and planned to attack and defeat the northern army in detail as it moved up, starting with Sheridan's troopers. Lee himself, however, was suffering from an abdominal complaint and was unable to take the field personally and in his absence the attack was bungled.
On the morning of 1st June, Kershaw's division attacked Sheridan's cavalry. The lead brigade was commanded by the inexperienced Col Keitt who led the charge in gallant 1861 style and promptly perished in a hail of bullets. His men, who had spent the last two years in soft garrison duties, fled at the sight and the veteran troops on the flanks were obliged to give back also. The attack degenerated into a panic retreat.
By midday, Wright arrived with three divisions to relieve Sheridan and dug in. Lee was obliged to call off further attacks. Towards sunset, Meade pushed Smith's and Wright's divisions forward into jumping-off points for the following day's attack.
The attack did not happen on 2nd because Hancock's Corps did not arrive until 6.30 am, two hours late, and they were too tired from their long night march to assault immediately. The attack was then set for 5 pm but Confederate activities on the flanks, including the taking of Turkey Hill, decided Grant to postpone it until the 3rd.
Grant was convinced that Lee's army was almost finished and this caused him to plan the attack carelessly. Little or no provision was made for communication or co-ordination and virtually no reconnaissance was carried out. The men, however, were deeply pessimistic about their chances and many spent the evening sewing pieces of paper with their names on onto their coats so that their bodies might be identified.
Their pessimism was fully warranted and the attack was a massacre. It ran into carefully prepared fields of fire and few men made it anywhere near the barricades. In approximately eight minutes the attack had been bloodily repulsed and that was it. Grant ordered further assaults but the local commanders to a man chose to interpret this to mean a stepped-up rate of fire only. None would advance into the certain death awaiting them in front. Eventually, at 1.30 pm Grant gave in and suspended the assault order. Casualties for the battle were 1500 Confederate and 7000 Union, most of the latter having been incurred in the first few minutes of the charge. With uncharacteristic gloom, Grant remarked "I regret this assault more than any one I ever ordered". Up at the sharp end, regret was even greater. A diary recovered from one of the Union corpses held the following entry: "June 3. Cold Harbor. I was killed."