Gaines Mill/Cold Harbor (October 31, 2009)

On a gray Richmond weekend with drizzle, went on a drive to check out a little more Civil War history. Near Mechanicsville, VA are two battlefields of note. The first is seen to the left; Gaines Mill. Part of the 1862 Campaign to defend/capture Richmond (depending on your point of view) the battle here was part of the Seven Days Campaign. The battles were the first in which General Robert E. Lee commanded the Confederate Army in a series of battles with the Union Army under General George B. McClellan. Gaines Mill was fought on June 27, 1862 about one mile from the Mill.


The house seen here was the headquarters of one of the Union commanders at the battle (General Fitz John Porter). It was built in 1820 and was a plantation house for the Watt family. The battle at this site was the heaviest of the Seven Days; by nightfall of June 27, some 15,000 soldiers of both sides were killed or wounded. The defeat of the Union Army here soon lead to the retreat of the Union Army north, and the Confederate invasion of Maryland later in the war. General Lee lead the Army of Northern Virginia to the end of the war. The battlefield had a nice trail, and covered a relatively small area but with a lot of information signs.
Second site I visited was Cold Harbor, just up the road a short distance (1-2 miles) from Gaines Mill. The cannon seen here is part of the Confederate lines. Cold Harbor was a series of battles from June 1-3, 1864 against entrenched Confederate defenses. General Grant said after the battle that he regretted the attacks at Cold Harbor. It was a different period in the war, as the Confederates were behind defensive positions some six miles long. Few of the trees seen in the photo were there in 1864, the Union Army attacked across open fields. Some 16,000 soldiers of both sides were killed or wounded in the battles there June 1-3, 1864.

The defenses at Cold Harbor some 140 years later do not look like much seen here. They did though to the Union troops told they would be attacking them; they pinned their names to their shirts so they could be identified when killed. On June 3, they went against the Confederate lines at 4:30 am, and an hour later some 6,000 were dead or dying in front of them. Something like 1,000 Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded in the fighting. The war around Petersburg and Richmond turned into virtual siege warfare from that point on. Eventually the Union forces broke the lines that defended the two cities, and the war came to an end.
It is amazing how much history there is to be seen in this area, the Civil War being just a part (though a big part) of what happened in the region. This being the Confederate capital city, much of the war both early on and especially later was centered around Richmond. It is amazing to see places that I just read about in the history books in school many years ago. It is great to see the respect and preservation that exists for these places, which were a part of a dark and bloody period in US history. The visits today were interesting and informative, and it was sobering to walk where so many brave men on both sides fought and died.