The Ultimate Sacrifice

During the Wilderness to Cold Harbor campaign, the losses sustained by both armies made the world shudder. Casualties by some estimates averaged 2,000 per day, and at Cold Harbor nearly 18,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. While Confederate dead were removed and taken to Richmond, Union dead were hastily buried in shallow trenches near where they fell. In 1866 burial parties scoured the battlefields, collected the remains, and reburied them just east of here. Today 2,000 Union soldiers lie buried at the Cold Harbor National Cemetery.

Mechanicsville, Virginia · United States