A Key Connector at Cold Harbor Preserved

The sunken bed of the now abandoned historic farm road stretches through the site’s western woods.

Image courtesy the American Battlefield Trust

Recipient: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

Award Amount: $175,215.21
Acreage: 5.5

“I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made,” reflected, General Ulysses S. Grant. “No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained.” Between May 31 and June 12, 1864, 12,737 Union soldiers died at the Battle of Cold Harbor, an unmitigated and costly defeat for the Union.

Before dawn on June 3, Union troops launched an attack through dense fog and darkness. Within the first 30 minutes, 7,000 men were killed or wounded as the swampy and heavily vegetated landscape, combined with strategic Confederate earthworks, gave Lee’s army the upper hand. By noon that day, Grant called off the attack after witnessing the devastation. Though the exhausted Union army was unable to pierce Lee’s defensive line and suffered 3 times the causalities, they pushed south across the James River and on to Petersburg, the manufacturing and rail center of the Confederacy.

With financial assistance from the American Battlefield Protection Program’s Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and their partner the American Battlefield Trust, will preserve part of the site where the Union corps gathered before the attack of June 3. These 5.5 acres will expand the region’s conservation corridor, connecting the site of Fetcher’s Redoubt with Beulah Church Road, and preserve well defined earthworks and a sunken roadbed.

Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants empower preservation partners nationwide to acquire and preserve threatened Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War battlefields. In addition, the program administers three other grants: Preservation Planning Grants, which are open to all sites of armed conflict on American soil, the newly authorized Battlefield Restoration and Battlefield Interpretation grant programs. This financial assistance generates community-driven stewardship of historic resources at the state, tribal and local levels.

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Check out the American Battlefield Protection Program's website for more information about various grant offerings and eligibility.

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