June 3, 1864 - Ulysses S. Grant attacks Robert E. Lee at Cold Harbor

The two armies had begun arriving at Old Cold Harbor on May 31. Elements of Major General Phil Sheridan's cavalry was the first on the scene. After fighting off an assault of Confederate infantry on the morning of June 1, Sheridan's mounted troopers were joined by infantry from the 6th Corps under Horatio Wright and the 18th Corps under William "Baldy" Smith. Together, these two forces attacked the growing defensive lines of the Confederate army west of Cold Harbor. The Confederate positions began to waver and might have broken if not for the onset of night.

The rest of the Union army began arriving on the field throughout the evening and Grant ordered a general assault across the entire line for the next day (June 2). However, Major General George Meade and his staff argued to Grant that the army was exhausted and that the movements which he wanted to execute would take too much time and wear the soldiers out to the point where they wouldn't be able to make a sufficient attack that next morning. So Grant stood down and allowed the army to rest on June 2. The grand assault against Lee's lines would begin at 4:30 AM on the morning of June 3.

By the evening of June 2, however, Lee's entrenchments were so formidable they almost resembled the trenches that came to be famous (or infamous) during the First World War. The delay had given the Confederate army time to prepare for what everyone knew was coming that next morning.

A lot of myths remain about that final assault on Cold Harbor. The biggest myth is that the plan was Grant's. This is untrue. While Grant ordered a direct assault made against the Confederate works, the planning was left to the Army of the Potomac's commander - George Meade. And Meade had so little faith in the endeavor that he failed to visit the front or coordinate with his principle commanders. Instead, he told Hancock, Wright, Smith, Burnside, and Warren (his five corps commanders) to coordinate with each other when making the assault on June 3. This was definitely not the brightest idea as both Warren and Smith could not stand Burnside and had little regard for him as a combat commander. As a result, little to no communication passed between them.

Another myth surrounding the June 3 assault are the casualties that they incurred. Popular folklore, made ever more popular by Ken Burns's otherwise excellent series on the Civil War, states that 7,000 Federal soldiers fell to Confederate gunfire in just 30 minutes. This is most certainly not true. The grand assault was supposed to involve the whole army but only Hancock's units made any major concerted effort to break through Confederate lines. Wright's men, who had fought at Cold Harbor two days before, knew what they were getting into - made a half-hearted try at it - and then began digging trenches about 50-100 yards away from the Confederate positions. Smith's men did the same while Warren and Burnside barely attacked at all.

Grant arrived on the field at 11 AM, conferred with the Army of the Potomac's corps commanders, and then quickly called off the assault. Union losses for the whole day amounted to about 5,000 killed and wounded - not the 7,000 in 30 minutes figure that is so aptly described in popular folklore.

Nevertheless, the assault was a dismal failure and came to be one of Grant's biggest regrets. He had underestimated the fighting ability of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, believing it on the ropes after the battles along the North Anna River and the maneuvering that led the two armies to Cold Harbor. As such, he believed one large assault so close to Richmond, with the Chickahominy River behind Lee, would be all that it would take to break through the Confederate leader's lines, take Richmond, and end the war.

However, it was not to be. On the day after the assault, Grant began planning another movement around the right flank of Lee's army. This movement would take the Army of the Potomac south of the Chickahominy and the James River to a railroad junction some 23 miles south of Richmond called Petersburg.