An early morning attack on the 12th carried a salient angle in the centre of the Confederate line, securing 4,000 prisoners and twenty guns. All that day and far into the night Lee desperately strove to dislodge the assailants from this “bloody angle.” Five furious charges were stubbornly repulsed, the belligerents between these grimly facing each other from lines of rifle-pits often but a few feet apart. Bullets flew thick as hail, a tree eighteen inches through being cut clean off by them. Great heaps of dead and wounded lay between the lines, and “at times a lifted arm or a quivering limb told of an agony not quenched by the Lethe of death around.” Lee did not give up this death-grapple till three o’clock in the morning, when he fell back to a new position. His losses here in killed and wounded were about 5,000; Grant’s about 6,000.
Rains now compelled both armies to remain quiet for several days. Meantime news reached Grant that Butler, who was to have moved up the James with his army of 20,000 and co-operate with the main army against Richmond, had suffered himself to be “bottled up” at Bermuda Hundred, a narrow spit of land between the James and Appomattox Rivers, the Confederates having “driven in the cork.” Re-enforcements reached Grant, however, which made good all his losses.
On the 19th, after an unsuccessful assault the day before, he resumed the flanking movement, and reached and passed the North Anna. But Lee pushed in like a wedge between the two parts of the Union army, separated by crossing the river at different points, and after some fighting, Grant re-crossed and resumed his march to the south. Lee, again moving on shorter lines, reached Cold Harbor before Grant.
The outer line of Confederate intrenchments at Cold Harbor was carried on June 1st, and at early dawn on the 3d a charge made along the whole front. Under cover of a heavy artillery fire the men advanced to the enemy’s rifle-pits and carried them. They then swept on toward the main line. The ground was open, and the advancing columns were exposed to a terrible storm of iron and lead. Artillery cross-fire swept through their ranks from right to left. The troops pressed close up to the works, but could not carry them. They intrenched, however, and held the position gained, at some points within thirty yards of the hostile ramparts. The Union loss was very heavy, not less than 6,000; the Confederates, fighting under shelter, lost comparatively few.
During the next ten days the men lay quietly in their trenches. Both forces had now moved so far south that Grant’s hope of getting between Lee’s army and Richmond had to be abandoned. He therefore decided to cross the James and take a position south of Richmond, whence he could threaten its lines of communication, while that river would furnish him a secure base of supplies.
The two hosts now began a race for Petersburg, an important railway centre, twenty-two miles south of Richmond. Grant’s advance reached the town first, but delayed earnest attack, and on the morning of the 15th Lee’s veterans, after an all-night’s march, flung themselves into the intrenchments. Grant spent the next four days in vain efforts to dislodge them. On the 19th he gave up this method of assault, and began a regular siege. His losses in killed and wounded hereabouts had been almost 9,000.
Things now remained comparatively quiet till late in July. Both sides were busy strengthening their intrenchments. Lee held both Richmond and Petersburg in force, besides a continuous line between the two. Attempts to break this line and to cut the railroads around Petersburg led to several engagements which would have been considered great battles earlier in the war.
General David Hunter.
Grant’s total losses from the crossing of the Rapidan to the end of June were 61,000, but re-enforcements promptly filled his ranks. The Confederate loss cannot be accurately determined, but was probably about two-thirds as great.