Battle of Cold Harbor
, (May 31?June 12, 1864), disastrous defeat for the Union Army during the
American Civil War
(1861?65) that caused some 18,000
casualties
. Continuing his relentless drive toward the Confederate capital of Richmond,
Virginia
, called the “Grand Campaign,” General
Ulysses S. Grant
ordered a frontal infantry assault on General
Robert E. Lee
’s Confederate troops, who were now entrenched at Cold Harbor, some 10 miles (16 km) northeast of
Richmond
. The result was Lee’s last major victory of the war and a bloodbath for the Union army. An earlier battle at Cold Harbor, on June 27, 1862, is sometimes called the Battle of Gaines’s Mill, the First Battle of Cold Harbor, or the Battle of Chickahominy River and was part of the
Seven Days’ Battles
(June 25?July 1), which ended the
Peninsular Campaign
(April 4?July 1), the large-scale Union effort earlier in the war to capture Richmond; it, too, was a Confederate victory.
The twin battles of Wilderness and
Spotsylvania Court House
, fought in Virginia in May 1864, produced victory for neither side, but
attrition
reduced the much smaller Confederate army’s numbers and sapped its willingness to fight. Union General Grant became convinced that Confederate General Lee’s army was “really whipped,” but his own casualties had also been high, and those troops who in 1861 had joined up for three years were now leaving the army in large numbers.
American Civil War Events
Battle of Fort Sumter
April 12, 1861 - April 14, 1861
Shenandoah Valley campaigns
July 1861 - March 1865
First Battle of Bull Run
July 21, 1861
Vicksburg Campaign
1862 - 1863
Mississippi Valley Campaign
February 1862 - July 1863
Battle of Fort Donelson
February 13, 1862 - February 16, 1862
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack
March 9, 1862
Battle of Shiloh
April 6, 1862 - April 7, 1862
Seven Days’ Battles
June 25, 1862 - July 1, 1862
Second Battle of Bull Run
August 29, 1862 - August 30, 1862
Battle of Antietam
September 17, 1862
Battle of Fredericksburg
December 13, 1862
Battle of Chancellorsville
April 30, 1863 - May 5, 1863
Battle of Gettysburg
July 1, 1863 - July 3, 1863
Second Battle of Fort Wagner
July 18, 1863
Fort Pillow Massacre
April 12, 1864
Atlanta Campaign
May 1864 - September 1864
Battle of the Wilderness
May 5, 1864 - May 7, 1864
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
May 8, 1864 - May 19, 1864
Battle of Cold Harbor
May 31, 1864 - June 12, 1864
Petersburg Campaign
June 1864 - April 9, 1865
Battle of Monocacy
July 9, 1864
Battle of Atlanta
July 22, 1864
Battle of the Crater
July 30, 1864
Battle of Mobile Bay
August 5, 1864 - August 23, 1864
Battle of Nashville
December 15, 1864 - December 16, 1864
Battle of Five Forks
April 1, 1865
Battle of Appomattox Court House
April 9, 1865
Grant therefore gambled on a final push to take Richmond. Minor skirmishes followed by delays began on 31 May, with Union General
Philip Sheridan
leading a cavalry attack against Confederate Major General Fitzhugh Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee. The main attack occurred on 3 June, when Grant launched a frontal assault on Confederate defenses. He believed that Lee’s men were overextended, but Lee had taken advantage of a
delay
in Grant’s assault to bring in reinforcements and improve his fortifications. The result of his preparations was carnage; the advancing Union troops were soon felled, with those making it through the first line of defenses soon being slaughtered at the second. More than 7,000 Union troops were killed or injured in one hour before Grant halted the attack.
For the next nine days, the two armies faced each other in opposite trenches, often only yards apart, until Grant marched off his army on 12 June to threaten the critical rail junction at
Petersburg
, near Richmond. His own comment on the battle: “I regret this assault more than any one I have ever ordered.” Cold Harbor marked Lee’s last significant victory of the war. The Union losses caused Grant to change his strategy, with no further attempts to take Richmond directly. Instead, by moving to Petersburg, Grant hoped to draw Lee out into a continued battle, a fight he assumed he would win because of both his larger force and his army’s more
abundant
supplies and equipment. Lee responded instead with a bold but ultimately unsuccessful invasion of Maryland and an assault on the federal capital of Washington under the command of General
Jubal Early
.
Losses: Union, 1,844 dead, 9,077 wounded, 1,816 captured or missing of 108,000; Confederate, 83 dead, 3,380 wounded, 1,132 captured or missing of 62,000.