The Cold Harbor Killing Fields

On June 3, 1864, some of the heaviest fighting at Cold Harbor occurred at three separate spots outside the present boundary of the national park, including the ground north of this point. Two brigades of infantry from the Eighteenth Corps charged from right to left across the flat, open field beyond the creek against Confederate fortifications that, in 1864, sheltered Southern riflemen and artillerists whose fire swept the open ground. A Massachusetts soldier wrote that “the surface of the field seemed like a boiling caldron from the incessant pattering and ploughing of shot, which raised the dirt in geysers and spitting sands.” Many of Cold Harbor’s terrible stories arose from this ground, where men were shot down so rapidly “that those in rear of them thought they were lying down,” and Union soldiers piled the bodies of dead comrades into emergency protection.

Mechanicsville, Virginia · United States