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BATTLE AT COLD HARBOR (JUNE 1 - 3, 1865)TOM IS WOUNDED IN THIS BATTLE Wednesday, June 1st – We lay still until about 2 o’clock in the evening. Then we moved to the right; again to our second breastworks. Fighting in front, on our right and left. Not much sleep tonight. Thursday,
June 2 – We moved to the right some half of a mile.
Nothing more took place, but a little picket fighting and we were resting
behind our breastworks. Lieut.
Rowland and myself were talking about furloughs. I had been promised a furlough at the end of every twelve
months and had never got any furlough, so we were talking about About 2 o’clock Gen. Even’s brigade was sent in and charged and routed the enemy; then all of Gordon’s division went in and made a charge, and as they were charging a shrapnel shell burst near me and an ounce lead ball struck me on my right thigh, about half way between my hip and knee joint, just in front of the bone. Well, when the ball struck me it knocked me half around. I had my bayonet set and as I turned around Captain Ring, who was acting Adjutant, happened to be in my circle and I stuck my bayonet in him. He raised his sword and told me, with an oath, he would cut me down. I came to a “charge bayonet” and told him to cut if he was ready. He let his sword down and passed on. Then Captain Pearson said to me: “Tom
are you wounded?” I
told him I was. “Well,” said he, “you better go to the rear.” By
this time my thigh had begun to hurt and bleed profusely, and I threw my gun and
cartridge box down and went to the rear. I
started down the turnpike road, but the Yankees were heaving their miserable
bombshells down that way, so I side tracked to the right and soon struck a dim,
old road that ran parallel with the pike, and there were no shells flying this
way, so I was getting along very well. Presently
I heard a racket behind me and I looked, and there came a man behind me in a
canter. Said he: “Are
you wounded?” I
told him I was. Said
he: “So am I” I
said: “Where at?” He
clasped his hand on the left seat of his trousers and said: “Right there!” By
this time he was ten paces in front of me, saying: “Come on, if you are going
with me.” I
said” “Go on, for I can’t keep up with you.” Well, as bad as I was hurting, I could not keep from laughing at him. So I hobbled along the best I could, and I found that I was bleeding worse, and finally I took down my pantaloons. Oh my! I was hurt so much worse than I thought I was that I sat down right there. As it happened I was near a road that the ambulances were traveling, so presently one came along, and after the driver informed himself that I was the genuine stuff he helped me in, and away we went to the division hospital. Well, after I got settled down, there came in a little old doctor who hailed from Baltimore, Md. He had been with us all of the time, and he was the proudest little scoundrel that you ever saw. He wore more brass on his clothes than any little man I ever saw. “Well,”
said he, “where are you wounded?” I
told him. Well, he began to examine
me, and said he would have to take off my leg.
Said he: “It
will have to come off right here.” Then
he ran his two little fingers in the holes, for the ball had gone clear through.
Said I: “Great
Scott! What do you mean?” “I
was just feeling for fractured bones,” said he.
“Well, I must take that leg off.” Said
I: “You don’t have to do any such thing.” “Oh!”
said he, “I know my business.” “Yes,”
said I, “but you don’t have to take off my leg.” Said he: “you don’t know what you are talking about.” I
said: “Now, here, if you are going to dress my wound, get at it, for you will
never cut off my leg.” So,
after awhile, he dressed my wound and gathered up his traps and pulled out. I did not get much sleep tonight.
Other Names: Second Cold Harbor Location: Hanover County Campaign: Grant’s Overland Campaign (May-June 1864) Date(s): May 31-June 12, 1864 Principal Commanders: Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade [US]; Gen. Robert E. Lee [CS] Forces Engaged: 170,000 total (US 108,000; CS 62,000) Estimated Casualties: 15,500 total (US 13,000; CS 2,500) Description: On May 31, Sheridan’s cavalry seized the vital crossroads of Old Cold Harbor. Early on June 1, relying heavily on their new repeating carbines and shallow entrenchments, Sheridan’s troopers threw back an attack by Confederate infantry. Confederate reinforcements arrived from Richmond and from the Totopotomoy Creek lines. Late on June 1, the Union VI and XVIII Corps reached Cold Harbor and assaulted the Confederate works with some success. By June 2, both armies were on the field, forming on a seven-mile front that extended from Bethesda Church to the Chickahominy River. At dawn June 3, the II and XVIII Corps, followed later by the IX Corps, assaulted along the Bethesda Church-Cold Harbor line and were slaughtered at all points. Grant commented in his memoirs that this was the only attack he wished he had never ordered. The armies confronted each other on these lines until the night of June 12, when Grant again advanced by his left flank, marching to James River. On June 14, the II Corps was ferried across the river at Wilcox’s Landing by transports. On June 15, the rest of the army began crossing on a 2,200-foot long pontoon bridge at Weyanoke. Abandoning the well-defended approaches to Richmond, Grant sought to shift his army quickly south of the river to threaten Petersburg. Result(s): Confederate victory
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