Battle of Cold Harbor - Mechanicsville, VA
Posted by: 
archway
N 37° 35.121 W 077° 17.178
18S E 298130 N 4162267
Placed by the Battlefield Markers Association, marker #27 describes the Battle of Cold Harbor and the action at the Confederate main line.
Waymark Code: WM800G
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 12/31/2009
Views: 4
The Battle of Cold Harbor was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant tried to attack Richmond directly but met fierce Confederate defenses. The Union effort was handicapped by poor reconnaissance, and many soldiers died between the battle lines when Grant refused to ask for a truce. Grant would later say that this is the attack he wish he had never ordered.
The Confederate victory marked the end of Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign, and it resulted in a change of tactics. Later, the Union occupied City Point and, instead of direct attacks, it fought a war of attrition by laying siege to Petersburg, a major supply route to Richmond.
Battle of Cold Harbor - The Confederate Main Line
Here Longstreet's corps, with Breckinridge and A. P. Hill's corps to the southward, repulsed on June 3, 1864, fourteen assaults from the east against the Confederate main line. The Federal losses, about 7,000, were the heaviest ever sustained in America in so brief an action. Placed by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.
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About the Battlefield Markers (Source: National Park Service):
This is one in a series of 61 markers erected beginning in 1925 to identify the battlefields around Richmond. The tablets were the work of the Battlefield Markers Association, a group of historians committed to commemorating the Richmond battlefields. Most prominent among the association's members was Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, the eminent biographer of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. The work of Dr. Freeman and the Association ultimately led to the purchase of battlefield lands and the establishment of Richmond National Battlefield Park in 1936.