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"You willget all thefighting you want before night. " ROADS AND TERRAIN figured prominently as Union and Confederate forces deployed for battle on the afternoon of June 1. Federal troops and wagons laden with supplies passed through Old Church, continued south along Bottoms Bridge Road to Spottswood Liggan's place, and turned west to Old Cold Harbor. The dilapidated tavern at the crossroads served as the Union nerve center. Officers directed most of the soldiers north along Beulah Church Road toward David Woody's farm. Woods shaded the western side of the road. Weary, dust-caked men formed in the trees, lining up along a northsouth axis and facing west toward the rebels. Other soldiers turned south at Old Cold Harbor onto Dispatch Station Road and staked out the southern leg of the Union line. The farmland between the armies was typical of the gently undulating countryside northeast of Richmond. Nature had designed the checkerboard of fields, forests, and ravines to favor the defense. A short distance west of the Union line, Confederate skirmishers waited in rifle pits large enough to hold two or three men. Dirt heaped in front, the excavations looked like animal burrows, inspiring soldiers to dub them "gopher holes." Half a mile beyond came an advance set of entrenchments, then a cleared field of fire, then obstacles, and finally the main Confederate line, sited on commanding ground and bristling with muskets and artillery. The Confederate earthworks ran generally north to south through woods, although in places—most notably next to Cold Harbor Road—they crossed open fields. Boatswain Creek's headwaters drained the fields south of the road, creating a marshy, wooded depression below the lower end of the rebel line. North of the road, three small streams pierced the Confederate line and VIII JUNE 1 Grant Attack*) at CoQ Harbor JUNE 1 GRANT ATTACKS AT COLD HARBOR 225 emptied into Gaines's Mill Pond well behind the rebel works. The lower stream, later called "Bloody Run," passed through the wooded ravine between Hoke and Kershaw about a quarter mile north of the roadway. A second ravine entered the rebel position three-eighths of a mile farther north, along the modern battlefield park boundary. Another half mile north, a third ravine defined Kershaw's left flank, due west of Mr. Woody's house. Whether these ravines would help the Confederates or their foes depended on how each army's field commanders used them. Ricketts's division in the 6th Corps's advance had reached Cold Harbor around 10:00 A.M. The soldiers had been on the road for eleven hours, leaving a few men so tired "as to frequently actually unconsciously march into scrub trees by the wayside or anything else in the line of march before awaking," an officer recalled. "It was simply impossible to keep awake as overtaxed nature had reached its limit." Some soldiers thought they were going to White House Landing to guard the army's supply base. Others speculated they were on their way to reinforce Butler in an operation to capture Richmond from the south. "Now, boys, you are all mistaken," a veteran insisted. "This is one of Grant's flank movements, and you will get all the fighting you want before night."1 From Cold Harbor, Ricketts shuttled his troops north along Beulah Church Road. Colonel Benjamin F. Smith's brigade stopped halfway to Mr. Woody's house and piled into woods west of the road. Colonel William S. Truex's brigade deployed on Smith's left, reaching south toward the Cold Harbor intersection. The dusty men were grateful for shade but disturbed to find corpses from Keitt's and Torbert's fight earlier that morning. The woods had burned in places, and charred bodies dotted patches of smoldering ashes where fires had raged. "It was a sad sight for anyone," reflected Major Lemuel A. Abbott of the 10th Vermont. Ricketts threw out a picket line under Lieutenant Colonel Otho H. Binkley of the 110th Ohio. Taking 250 men from his own regiment and 150 more from the 87th Pennsylvania, Binkley advanced west into the fields. Rebel skirmishers opened from their gopher holes, Binkley's troops took whatever cover they could find, and a swelling patter of musketry provided a backdrop for Ricketts's slumbering soldiers.2 Near noon, Russell's division reached Cold Harbor and moved into place straddling Cold Harbor Road, two brigades north of the roadway and two south. Emory Upton's brigade marched a short...

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