In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

X JUNE 3, 4:30-5:30 A.M. Hancock, Wright, am) Smith Attack at Cold Harbor "A dunple brute nuih in open day on dtrong workd. " RAIN FELL SHORTLY before daylight on June 3, "refreshingly us exceedingly ," a Federal recalled. Mist hugged close to the ground, obscuring objects more than a few yards ahead. Moisture dripped from trees, and fog seemed unusually dense. The scene was chillingly familiar to the Union 2nd Corps's veterans. Three weeks before, on a foggy, rain-drenched morning very much like this one, they had lined up for a 4:30 A.M. charge against Lee's Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania Court House. Now their superiors wanted them to repeat that performance. "I must confess that order was not received with much hilarity ," a corporal in the 19th Maine recalled. "There was some hooting at the brigade commanders by the soldiers, but when it was ascertained that these officers themselves were going to lead the men, there was no further hesitation."1 A signal gun was to announce the attack, sending Hancock's, Wright's, and Smith's corps lunging toward the Confederate entrenchments. To the north, Warren and Burnside were to attack as well, pinning down Confederate troops there and swinging south, if possible, rolling up the Confederate line and taking pressure off Smith's northern flank. Grant had ordered the offensive. Meade, however, was responsible for deploying his corps, coordinating their movements, and posting reserves to exploit any gains. "I had immediate and entire command of the field all day," Meade wrote his wife. The Pennsylvanian still smarted from the humiliation of his subordinate position and thoroughly disapproved of Grant's hard-hitting , army-wide assaults. Facing a disagreeable assignment, he dealt with it by doing little. The record reveals no steps to reconnoiter the ground, coordinate the army's elements, or tend to the things that diligent generals ordi- JUNE 3 HANCOCK, WRIGHT, AND SMITH ATTACK 319 narily do before sending soldiers against fortified enemy lines. During the finger-pointing following the botched assaults at Spotsylvania, Grant's aides had decried Meade's inability to translate Grant's plans into action. "The result of Grant's having a middleman was to make the whole organization wooden," Lieutenant Colonel Adam Badeau had observed. "Meade severed the nerve between the commander in chief and the army. He was a non-conductor ." Grant was well aware that Meade was ill-suited to his aggressive style of fighting but felt he had to keep him on. Someone, after all, had to manage the tactical minutiae of running the army. June 3 would underscore the consequences of leaving operational details of a major offensive to a general with no heart for the assignment.2 Meade announced the time for the attack and left his corps commanders to cooperate. Baldy Smith, his 18th Corps divisions in place immediately to the north of Wright's formation, asked Wright about his plan of attack and offered to subordinate his charge to the 6th Corps's assault. "His reply was that he was going to assault in his front," Smith later wrote. "I was, therefore, forced to make mine independently, yet keeping up the communication with the 6th Corps." Nothing suggests that Wright and Hancock attempted to coordinate their offensives. And on the army's northern wing, relations between Warren and Burnside, true to Roebling's prediction, had deteriorated so badly that the two generals ceased communicating. As events developed, Warren and Burnside would not start their attacks until nearly three hours after the appointed time, leaving Hancock, Wright, and Smith to make the great attack at Cold Harbor unaided. The Army of the Potomac was a dysfunctional family , and the man charged with bringing harmony to it had no patience for the task.3 Hancock's plan was a model of simplicity. Barlow and Gibbon were to "attack at such points on the front of their respective divisions as the commanders may select at 4:30 A.M.," he instructed, while Birney remained in reserve, "ready to support either." Hancock's soldiers had shifted into position late on June 2, and no one, including division heads, had a clear idea of the terrain they would cross or the precise layout of the enemy line. "The division commanders only knew that they were to push forward until they struck the enemy 's works," an officer recorded. "The attack was a simple brute rush in open day on strong works...

Share