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Old Cold Harbor

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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OLD and NEW, two localities in Hanover county, Virginia, U.S.A., 10 m. N.E. of Richmond. They were the scenes of a succession of battles, on May 31 - June 12, 1864, between the Union forces under command of General U. S. Grant and the Confederates under General R. E. Lee, who held a strongly entrenched line at New Cold Harbor. The main Union attack on June 3 was delivered by the II. (Hancock), VI. (Wright), and XVIII. (W. F. Smith) corps, and was brought to a standstill in eight minutes. An order from army headquarters to renew the attack was ignored by the officers and men at the front, who realized fully the strength of the hostile position. These troops lost as many as 5000 men in an hour's fighting, the greater part in the few minutes of the actual assault. In the constant fighting of 31st of May to 12th of June on this ground Grant lost 14,000 men. (See WILDERNESS and AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.)