A Lesson from Cold Harbor

 David Alan Black

It happened 139 years ago near a white-framed tavern in a triangular grove of trees. They called the place Cold Harbor, a name deriving from British usage and originally meaning “shelter without food.”

The Federals under Grant and Meade were operating in unfamiliar land, with little understanding of the terrain. This was the land of the black snake, jiggers, lizards, and ticks—a land the Union veterans had come to loathe in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. Their maps were faulty. They faced impassable swamps, wooded ridges, and narrow ravines. The entire Federal army was suffering from exhaustion brought on by ill-conceived lengthy marches in extreme summer heat over dust-choking roads. They had faced fire in the Wilderness, rain at Spotsylvania, and absolutely no rest.

James L. Bowen of the 37th Massachusetts described the grueling march.

Then the march was taken up and steadily pursued, and seldom had the brave men struggled through a more severe ordeal. The day proved intensely hot, the sun burning down with a lurid, brassy glare that seemed to broil the human flesh on which it fell; the way led through sandy plains, heated to the intensity of a vast furnace, from which the most terrible clouds of dust arose, not only high into the air, disclosing every movement to the watchful enemy, but as well choking the breath and blinding the vision of the gasping men who were marching through them. Everywhere the sun-stroke did its deadly work—men fell blinded and gasping from the ranks, strong, brave men who on a dozen deadly fields had looked death in the face without quailing, conquered now by the long, unceasing strain to which they had been subject and the might power of the elements.

The Federals had just one more river to cross—the Chickahominy, which ran across the Confederate rear just five miles away. Five miles beyond the river lay the Confederate capital of Richmond. The field of maneuver was growing narrower. The Federal army could no longer swing back and forth in wide arcs, going twenty miles to one side in order to get five miles forward.

The Confederate Army was in no better condition. Its most capable leaders had become casualties during the fighting of the previous month. Lee had been unable to make up even half the losses he had suffered since the Overland Campaign had begun. His troops were weak from sickness and hunger. Men had gone without rations for two days. Lee himself was suffering from a severe bout with diarrhea that had left him all but incapacitated. Corps’ commanders Ewell and Hill were suffering from failing health.

The situation became more desperate as the Federal army began to close in on the Confederate capital. Lee, as usual, was content to rely not only on the abilities of his subordinate officers but also on the lack of ability of his enemy. This philosophy had sustained him early in the war, but now his audacious subordinate officers were gone. Stonewall Jackson had died after being wounded at Chancellorsville, James Longstreet had been wounded in the Wilderness, and J.E.B. Stuart had been mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern.

At 4:30 am on June 3, 1864, 50,000 blue-clad soldiers climbed out of their trenches and advanced in a two-mile-long line toward the Confederate entrenchments. The confident soldiers in gray could scarcely believe the folly of the Union commanders in sending their men to such obvious slaughter. They held their fire until the Federals were within range and then mowed down the front ranks with rifle volleys and canister fire.

“That dreadful storm of lead and iron seemed more like a volcanic blast than a battle,” recalled a Union captain. Blue troops from the second line stepped over the dead and wounded and continued the charge. They too were swept away by the furious fire, described by one soldier as “a boiling cauldron from the incessant pattering of shot which raised the dirt in geysers and spitting sands.”

The Confederate defenders were appalled at the death their murderous fire was causing in the continuous waves of Federal soldiers. Shocked by the acres of dead and wounded covering the ground in front of his earthworks all along the line, Confederate Gen. Evander Law said, “I had seen the carnage in front of Marye’s hill at Fredricksburg, and on the old railroad cut which Jackson’s men held at the Second Manassas; but I had seen nothing to exceed this. It was not war; it was murder.”

It was over in half an hour. The stunned attackers recoiled and sought the protection of their trenches, having left 7,000 of their comrades lying on the field. The 30,000 Confederates involved in the attack suffered only 1,500 casualties.

We who follow Christ today are no less warriors than were the brave men of both sides who fought at Cold Harbor. Paul wrote to Timothy, “Yes, and all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). Note it well: Paul does not say “some,” he does not say, “most,” he says “all.” That is the fate of a soldier.

The modern Christian all too often avoids hardship by taking the line of least resistance and living in a truce with this age. The first Christians wore scars but we want medals. How much tribulation have you had because you are a soldier of the cross? Have you any wounds to show that you have been in the battle? We sing lustily, “Content to let the world go by,” with no thought of doing any such thing. We wave our flag all day Sunday and love ease the rest of the week.

Too many today avoid the battle for truth under the false guise of wise tolerance. They mistake unwillingness to speak out on controversial issues as a sign of a sweeter spirit in old age. “I’ve paid my dues—let the younger generation handle these issues.” Paul was a living example that no man is retired from duty as long as he is still on this earth. He kept his fight to the finish: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Among the lessons we can learn from the Battle of Cold Harbor is this: Character is not grown at pleasure resorts. Great soldiers are developed in battle, not in swivel chairs or on parade. It takes a grindstone to sharpen an axe.

If you find the going hard these days, remember that you are a soldier in training for the service of God.

June 2, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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