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I have not yet begun to fight. -- Captain John Paul Jones |
Cold Harbor
Other Names: Second Cold Harbor Location: Hanover County Campaign: Grant?s Overland Campaign (May-June 1864) Date(s): May 31-June 12, 1864 Principal Commanders: Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade [US]; Gen. Robert E. Lee [CS] Forces Engaged: 170,000 total (US 108,000; CS 62,000) Estimated Casualties: 15,500 total (US 13,000; CS 2,500) Description: On May 31, Sheridan?s cavalry seized the vital crossroads of Old Cold Harbor. Early on June 1, relying heavily on their new repeating carbines and shallow entrenchments, Sheridan?s troopers threw back an attack by Confederate infantry. Confederate reinforcements arrived from Richmond and from the Totopotomoy Creek lines. Late on June 1, the Union VI and XVIII Corps reached Cold Harbor and assaulted the Confederate works with some success. By June 2, both armies were on the field, forming on a seven-mile front that extended from Bethesda Church to the Chickahominy River. At dawn June 3, the II and XVIII Corps, followed later by the IX Corps, assaulted along the Bethesda Church-Cold Harbor line and were slaughtered at all points. Grant commented in his memoirs that this was the only attack he wished he had never ordered. The armies confronted each other on these lines until the night of June 12, when Grant again advanced by his left flank, marching to James River. On June 14, the II Corps was ferried across the river at Wilcox?s Landing by transports. On June 15, the rest of the army began crossing on a 2,200-foot long pontoon bridge at Weyanoke. Abandoning the well-defended approaches to Richmond, Grant sought to shift his army quickly south of the river to threaten Petersburg. Result(s): Confederate victory |
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This Day in History
1775:
The American Revolution begins as fighting breaks out at Lexington, Massachusetts.
1861: Residents of Baltimore, Maryland, attack a Union regiment while the group makes its way to Washington. 1861: President Lincoln orders a blockade of Confederate ports. 1927: In China, Hankow communists declare war on Chiang Kai-shek. 1938: General Francisco Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War. 1943: Waffen SS attack Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto putting down the uprising. 1951: I and IX Corps reached the Utah Line, south of the Iron Triangle. 1951: General MacArthur denounced the Truman Administration before a joint session of Congress for refusing to lift restrictions on the scope of the war. 1952: The U.N. delegation informed the communists that only 70,000 of 132,000 of the prisoners of war held by the United Nations Command were willing to return home. |