Cavalry Action at Cold Harbor

O-68

On 31 May 1864, Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt's Union cavalry brigade, operating under Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, advanced along this road and through these fields. Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee’s Confederate horsemen fought a fluid defensive battle, gradually withdrawing to a stronger position at the Cold Harbor crossroads just west of here. The Mantlo farmhouse on the north side of this road was here during the action. Later, before the Union army left Cold Harbor on 12-13 June, it erected a shortened defensive line of entrenchments, portions of which survive in the nearby woods.

Department of Historic Resources, 2006

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Hanover County/National Park Service, A Survey of Civil War Sites in Hanover, County, Virginia, (no date, circa 2003) pp. 69-71. Gordon, Rhea, Cold Harbor (Louisiana State University Press, 2003) Chapter VI. Salmon, John S., Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide. ( Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pa, 2001), pp. 294-298. U. S. War Department, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume 36, Part One.