Battle Of Cold Harbor Essay

The Battle of Cold Harbor was amongst the most severe of the civil war. Fought between May 31, 1864 and June 12, 1865, the battle was indeed another display of the vast carnage that the toll of the Civil War had taken on both sides. An estimated total force of 108,000 Union forces engaged in the confict, with 62,000 Confederate soldiers posted . On May 31, 1864, the battle had initially proceeded, under Union Major General Phil Sheridan’s seizing of the crossroads at Old Cold Harbor. The commanders in place for the Union army aside from General Grant (general-in-chief with full command of the army of the Potomac, which was relinquished to Meade), were the Second Corps under the command of Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, the Fifth

General Richard H. Anderson. The Second Corps comprised under the direction of Lt. General Jubal Early, the Third Corps under Lt. General A.P. Hill among others. The battle began with the Confederates under the direction of Fitzhugh Lee, being pushed back further than their initial point at the Old Cold Harbor in Mechanicsville, Va. on May 31. Lee, seeking to send Major General’s Kershaw and Hoke for a combined assault on Union forces, were outsurmised by Sheridan on the 1st of June, this essentially proved to be a victory for Sheridan’s troops, with this success, the Union high command was poised to route part of the Confederate military position. However, this proved to be an unsuccessful manuever for the Grant-led Union army, due to the delay of General William Smith’s Eigth Corps, Army of the James, it was because of his army’s incorrect orders, that caused the troops to march in the wrong direction. As a result, with the Corps not arriving until almost mid-day June 2nd. This in turn allowed the Confederate army to fervently have to build entrenchments to maintain a defensive poisiton in the face of the onslaught of Union forces, who would attack the very next