Grant's change of base. [from the Philadelphia record, April 7, 1901]
The horrors of the battle of Cold Harbor.From a soldier's note book.
Sights which filled even Veterans with Horror—Why McClellan Failed—a mistake that cost many lives.Cold Harbor was one of the most desperately contested battles of the Civil War, and more men were killed and wounded there in a shorter space of time than in any other of the many bloody engagements [286] of the war, for the battle proper did not last over ten minutes, and that was when the grand charge of Grant's troops was made on the Confederate works at early dawn of June 3, 1864. The loss was confined principally to the Federal army, in comparison to which that of the Confederates was insignificant, as they fought from behind well constructed breastworks. Indeed, I think the loss of the First Maryland Battalion was proportionately greater than that of any other Confederate regiment, and that because of their desperate efforts to recover the works from which Echols was driven, of which I wrote in my last article.
This was the only point along the whole Confederate line where the enemy gained a lodgment, but from which they were quickly driven back through the combined efforts of the Marylanders and Finnegan's Floridians.
