Battle of Cold Harbor and Related Topics

The "Dictator" siege mortar at Petersburg. In the foreground, the figure on the right is Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, chief of artillery of the Army of the Potomac.

Siege of Petersburg

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Series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War.

Fredericksburg, Virginia; May 1863. Soldiers in the trenches. Trench warfare would appear again more infamously in World War I

Siege of Petersburg, assaults on June 15–18

Siege of Petersburg, movements against the railroads and A.P. Hill's counterattack, June 21–22

"Dictator" siege mortar on the U.S. Military Railroad at Petersburg

Siege of Petersburg, Battle of the Crater, July 30

Sketch of the explosion seen from the Union line.

Second Battle of Deep Bottom, August 14–20

Siege of Petersburg, capture of the Weldon Railroad, August 18–19

Siege of Petersburg, actions on October 27

Siege of Petersburg, actions preceding Five Forks

Grant's final assaults and Lee's retreat (start of the Appomattox Campaign)

<center>Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson</center>

<center>Brig. Gen. August Kautz</center>

Fascine Trench Breastworks, Petersburg, Va. – NARA – 524792. Although identified as Confederate Trenches this is actually Union Fort Sedgwick aka "Fort Hell" which was opposite Fort Mahone aka "Fort Damnation"<ref>Civil War talk Forum</ref>

Union Army 9th Corps attacking Fort Mahone aka "Fort Damanation" sketch by Alfred Ward.

Confederate artilleryman killed during the final Union assault against the trenches at Petersburg. Photo by Thomas C. Roche, April 3, 1865.<ref>Frassanito, p. 360.</ref><ref>See website Petersburg Project on location of Many of the Roche photographs at Petersburg April 1865</ref> Although prints of this picture list it as being taken at Ft Mahone, historians at the "Petersburg Project" believe it was taken at Confederate Battery 25<ref>Dead Artilleryman comments Petersburg Project</ref>

Smoke is still rising from the ruins of Richmond, Virginia after surrendering on April 3, 1865 following the Union victory at the siege of Petersburg. Union cavalry mounts with carbines visible are hitched in the foreground.

Richmond–Petersburg Theater, fall 1864
Confederate
Union

This theory was tested at the Battle of Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12) when Grant's army once again came into contact with Lee's near Mechanicsville.

Overland Campaign

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Series of battles fought in Virginia during May and June 1864, in the American Civil War.

Sheridan's Richmond Raid, including the Battles of Yellow Tavern and Meadow Bridge

Union staff meeting at Massaponax Baptist Church on May 21, 1864. Grant has his back to the smaller tree with Charles Anderson Dana to his left, while Meade is seated at the far left.

Movements in the Overland Campaign, May 27–29, 1864, following the Battle of North Anna

Movement to Totopotomoy, May 25–28, 1864, following the Battle of North Anna

Movements in the Overland Campaign, May 29, and actions May 30, 1864

Battle of Totopotomoy Creek, May 30, 1864

Positions of the armies on the afternoon of June 1, 1864

Cold Harbor, Virginia. African Americans collecting bones of soldiers killed in the battle. Photo by John Reekie, April 1865.

Crossing the James River, 12–16 June 1864.

Routes of Federal and Confederate cavalry to Trevilian Station, June 7–10, 1864

Sheridan's return to the Army of the Potomac from his Trevilian Station raid

5 a.m., May 6. Hancock attacks Hill on the Plank Road

6–10 a.m., May 6. Longstreet counterattacks

11 a.m., May 6. Longstreet attacks Hancock's flank from the railroad bed

Movements on May 7, 1864; cavalry actions inset

Positions and movements on the Union flanks, May 9

Movements, May 17, final Union attacks, May 18

Actions on May 23: Hancock attacks "Henagan's Redoubt", A.P. Hill attempts to repulse Warren's beachhead

Actions on May 24: Ledlie attacks Ox Ford, Hancock attempts to advance against the eastern leg of the inverted "V"

Stalemate: Union and Confederate positions May 25–26

Overland Campaign, from the Wilderness to crossing the James River
Confederate
Union

Start of the Overland Campaign, May 4, 1864: Movement into the Wilderness.
Confederate
Union

Attacks on the Laurel Hill line, May 8
Confederate
Union

The Overland Campaign from the Wilderness to the North Anna River, May 5–26, 1864
Confederate
Union

The final major battle of the campaign was waged at Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12), in which Grant gambled that Lee's army was exhausted and ordered a massive assault against strong defensive positions, resulting in disproportionately heavy Union casualties.

Ulysses S. Grant

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American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877.

Grant's birthplace, Point Pleasant, Ohio

Chinook Indian Plank House Published 1845
Grant believed Pacific Northwest Indians were a peaceful people and not a threat to settlers.

"Hardscrabble" Published 1891
The farm home Grant built in Missouri for his family. His wife Julia called the home an "unattractive cabin".

Brigadier General Grant photographed at Cairo, Illinois, September 1861 (Published 1911)

21st Illinois regiment monument in the Viniard Field, Chickamauga

Grant's successful gamble: Porter's gunboats night ran the Confederate gauntlet at Vicksburg on the Mississippi River.
Published 1863

The Battle of Jackson, fought on May 14, 1863, was part of the Vicksburg Campaign.
Published 1863

Union troops swarm Missionary Ridge and defeat Bragg's army. Published 1886

Commanding General Grant at the Battle of Cold Harbor, June 1864

Grant (center left) next to Lincoln with General Sherman (far left) and Admiral Porter (right) – The Peacemakers by Healy, 1868

Defeated by Grant, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House

Grant–Colfax Republican Ticket
Published 1868

Inauguration of President U.S. Grant, Capitol building steps.
March 4, 1869

Anthony Comstock Grant's vigorous prosecutor of abortionists and pornographers.

Amos T. Akerman, appointed Attorney General by Grant, who vigorously prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan

Image of mobs rioting entitled "The Louisiana Outrage". White Leaguers at Liberty Place attacked the integrated police force and state militia, New Orleans, September 1874.
Published October 1874

Secretary of Treasury George S. Boutwell aided Grant to defeat the Gold Ring.

Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Grant successfully settled the Alabama Claims by treaty and arbitration.

Wharf of Santo Domingo City
Dominican Republic

American Captain Frye and his crew were executed by Spanish authority.

King Kalākaua of Hawaii meets President Grant at the White House on his state visit, 1874.
Published January 2, 1875

Ely Samuel Parker
Grant appointed Parker the first Native American (Seneca) Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Battle of the Little Big Horn
Great Sioux War
Published 1889

Cartoon by Thomas Nast on Grant's opponents in the reelection campaign

Grant is congratulated for vetoing the "inflation bill" in 1874.

Cartoonist Thomas Nast praises Grant for rejecting demands by Pennsylvania politicians to suspend civil service rules.

Harper's Weekly
cartoon on Bristow's Whiskey Ring investigation

Cartoonist Joseph Keppler lampooned Grant and his associates. Grant's prosecutions of the Whiskey Ring and the Klan were ignored.
Puck, 1880

Official White House portrait of President Grant by Henry Ulke, 1875

Commanding General Grant
Constant Mayer's portrait of 1866

Grant National Memorial, known as "Grant's Tomb", largest mausoleum in North America

Grant believed breaking through Lee's lines at its weakest point, Cold Harbor, a vital road hub that linked to Richmond, would mean the destruction of Lee's army, the capture of Richmond, and a quick end to the rebellion.

Philip Sheridan

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Career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War.

Brevet Second Lieutenant Philip Sheridan, engraving by H. B. Hall

Rienzi, stuffed and on display at the National Museum of American History

Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan and his generals in front of Sheridan's tent, 1864. Left to right: Henry E. Davies, David McM. Gregg, Sheridan, Wesley Merritt, Alfred Torbert, and James H. Wilson.

Sheridan's Ride, chromolithograph by Thure de Thulstrup

Lee's retreat in the Appomattox Campaign, April 3–9, 1865

Sheridan portrait by Mathew Brady or Levin C. Handy

General Sheridan stands by his dispatches by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, v. 19, no. 944 (January 30, 1875), p. 89.

A cartoon from Harper's Weekly of December 21, 1878, features Philip Sheridan and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz

Sheridan's headstone at Arlington National Cemetery. The inscription faces Washington, D.C.

Sheridan memorialized on the 1890 $10 Treasury note, and one of 53 people depicted on United States banknotes

Generals Sherman, Grant and Sheridan, Issue of 1937

Equestrian statue of Philip Sheridan in the center of Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C.

Sheridan's return to the Army of the Potomac from his Trevilian Station raid, including the Battle of Saint Mary's Church

They seized the critical crossroads that triggered the Battle of Cold Harbor (June 1 to June 12) and withstood a number of assaults until reinforced.

Jubal Early

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Virginia lawyer and politician who became a Confederate general during the American Civil War.

Early's childhood home in northeastern Franklin County

General Early, disguised as a farmer, while escaping to Mexico, 1865

A plaque praising Early in Rocky Mount, Virginia

Thus, Early commanded that corps in the Battle of Cold Harbor.

Clockwise from top: Battle of Gettysburg

Union Captain John Tidball's artillery

Confederate prisoners

ironclad USS Atlanta (1861)

Ruins of Richmond, Virginia

Battle of Franklin

American Civil War

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Civil war in the United States between the Union (states that remained loyal to the federal union, or "the North") and the Confederacy (states that voted to secede, or "the South").

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, aroused public opinion about the evils of slavery. According to legend, when Lincoln was introduced to her at the White House, his first words were, "So this is the little lady who started this Great War."

Frederick Douglass, a former slave, was a leading abolitionist

Marais des Cygnes massacre of anti-slavery Kansans, May 19, 1858

Mathew Brady, Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1860

The first published imprint of secession, a broadside issued by the Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America (1861–1865)

Bombardment of the Fort by the Confederates

Rioters attacking a building during the New York anti-draft riots of 1863

Clashes on the rivers were melees of ironclads, cottonclads, gunboats and rams, complicated by naval mines and fire rafts.

Battle between the USS Monitor and USS Merrimack (1855)

General Scott's "Anaconda Plan" 1861. Tightening naval blockade, forcing rebels out of Missouri along the Mississippi River, Kentucky Unionists sit on the fence, idled cotton industry illustrated in Georgia.

Gunline of nine Union ironclads. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston. Continuous blockade of all major ports was sustained by North's overwhelming war production.

A December 1861 cartoon in Punch magazine in London ridicules American aggressiveness in the Trent Affair. John Bull, at right, warns Uncle Sam, "You do what's right, my son, or I'll blow you out of the water."

County map of Civil War battles by theater and year

"Stonewall" Jackson got his nickname at Bull Run.

The Battle of Antietam, the Civil War's deadliest one-day fight.

Confederate dead overrun at Marye's Heights, reoccupied next day May 4, 1863

By 1863, the Union controlled large portions of the Western Theater, especially areas surrounding the Mississippi River

The Battle of Chickamauga, the highest two-day losses

Nathaniel Lyon secured St. Louis docks and arsenal, led Union forces to expel Missouri Confederate forces and government.

These dead soldiers—from Ewell's May 1864 attack at Spotsylvania—delayed Grant's advance on Richmond in the Overland Campaign.

Map of Confederate territory losses year by year

Burying Union dead on the Antietam battlefield, 1862

Through the supervision of the Freedmen's Bureau, northern teachers traveled into the South to provide education and training for the newly freed population.

Beginning in 1961 the U.S. Post Office released commemorative stamps for five famous battles, each issued on the 100th anniversary of the respective battle.

The Battle of Fort Sumter, as depicted by Currier and Ives.

Slave states that seceded before April 15, 1861 Slave states that seceded after April 15, 1861 Union states that permitted slavery (border states) Union states that banned slavery
Territories

US Secession map. The Union vs. the Confederacy.
Union states
Union territories not permitting slavery
Border Union states, permitting slavery (One of these states, West Virginia was created in 1863)
Confederate states
Union territories that permitted slavery (claimed by Confederacy) at the start of the war, but where slavery was outlawed by the U.S. in 1862

Abolition of slavery in the various states of the United States over time:Abolition of slavery during or shortly after the American Revolution
The Northwest Ordinance, 1787
Gradual emancipation in New York (starting 1799, completed 1827) and New Jersey (starting 1804, completed by Thirteenth Amendment, 1865)
The Missouri Compromise, 1821
Effective abolition of slavery by Mexican or joint US/British authority
Abolition of slavery by Congressional action, 1861
Abolition of slavery by Congressional action, 1862
Emancipation Proclamation as originally issued, January 1, 1863
Subsequent operation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863
Abolition of slavery by state action during the Civil War
Operation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864
Operation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865
Thirteenth Amendment to the US constitution, December 18, 1865
Territory incorporated into the US after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment

Oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and, among other promises, to "abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the . . . rebellion having reference to slaves . . . ," signed by former Confederate officer Samuel M. Kennard on June 27, 1865

The Union army first attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles, notably at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor.

Robert E. Lee

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Confederate general who served the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War, during which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army.

Lee at age 31 in 1838, as a Lieutenant of Engineers in the U.S. Army

Robert E. Lee, around age 38, and his son William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, around age 8, c.1845

Robert E. Lee around age 43, when he was a brevet lieutenant-colonel of engineers, c. 1850

Lee mounted on Traveller (September 1866)

Battle of Gettysburg, by Thure de Thulstrup

Lee with son Custis (left) and aide Walter H. Taylor (right) by Brady, April 16, 1865

General Lee and his Confederate officers in their first meeting since Appomattox, August 1869.

Oath of amnesty submitted by Robert E. Lee in 1865

Robert E. Lee, oil on canvas, Edward Calledon Bruce, 1865. Virginia Historical Society

Robert Edward Lee in art at the Battle of Chancellorsville in a stained glass window of the Washington National Cathedral

Facade view of Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial — at Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia, pictured in 2006

Unveiling of the Equestrian Statue of Robert E. Lee, May 29, 1890, Richmond, Virginia

The removal of Lee's statue from a monument in New Orleans

Stained glass of Lee's life in the National Cathedral

Robert E. Lee, National Statuary Hall, Washington, D.C. Edward Virginius Valentine, sculptor, 1909

Robert E Lee, Virginia Monument, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Frederick William Sievers, sculptor, 1917

Robert E. Lee Monument by Mercié, Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia, 1890

Statue of Lee at the Confederate War Memorial, Dallas, 1896

University Chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee University

These battles in the Overland Campaign included the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor.

George Meade

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United States Army officer and civil engineer best known for decisively defeating Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

Meade photographed by Mathew Brady or Levin C. Handy

Commanders of the Army of the Potomac, Gouverneur K. Warren, William H. French, George G. Meade, Henry J. Hunt, Andrew A. Humphreys, and George Sykes in September 1863

General Meade's headquarters, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Engraving by James E. Kelly of George G. Meade and the Council of War at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

General Meade's headquarters, Culpeper, Virginia

Horse artillery headquarters in Brandy Station, Virginia, February 1864. Meade stands at the far right with Generals John Sedgwick and Alfred Torbert, along with staff officers.

Generals George G. Meade, Andrew A. Humphreys and staff in Culpeper, Virginia outside Meade's headquarters, 1863

General Meade and other generals of Army of the Potomac in Washington, D.C., June 1865

General George G. Meade and staff in Washington, D.C. in June 1865

George Meade tombstone in Laurel Hill Cemetery

George Gordon Meade Memorial, sculpted by Charles Grafly, located in front of the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, D.C.

General Meade lived at 1836 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, and died in the house, 1872, according to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker in front.

A monument to Meade by sculptor Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, on the Gettysburg Battlefield, located close to the point where Pickett's Charge was repulsed.

Equestrian statue in Philadelphia, designed by Alexander Milne Calder, located in Fairmount Park, which Meade was the commissioner of following the war.

During the Battle of Cold Harbor, Meade inadequately supervised his corps commanders and did not insist they perform reconnaissance before their disastrous frontal assault.

Mechanicsville, Virginia

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Unincorporated area and census-designated place in Hanover County, Virginia, United States.

Rural Plains, located on the grounds of the Richmond National Battlefield Park, Hanover County

Near Gaines' Mill was the Battle of Cold Harbor, the final battle of Union Lieut.

Ambrose Burnside

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American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three times Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor and industrialist.