Following the terrible battle at Cold Harbor, Federal troops from Major-General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac (with General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant in overall command) remained pinned down in front of the defenses of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Meade described his role in the fight to his wife Margaret: “I had immediate and entire command on the field all day, the Lieutenant General (Grant) honoring the field with his presence only about one hour in the middle of the day.”
Meade added, “We had a big battle yesterday, on the field of the old Gaines’s Mill battle-ground, with the positions of the contending forces reversed. The battle ended without any decided results, we repulsing all attacks of the enemy and they doing the same; losses estimated about equal on both sides; ours roughly estimated at 7,500 in all.” Meade downplayed the fact that the Confederate attacks that had been repulsed were mere probes that did not compare to the massive repulse of his men.
Nevertheless, Meade felt vindicated about his decisions last year not to attack the Confederate defenses at Williamsport and Mine Run. He told Margaret, “In every instance that we have attacked the enemy in an entrenched position, we have failed… So likewise whenever the enemy has attacked us in position he has been repulsed. I think Grant has had his eyes opened & is willing to admit now that Virginia & Lee’s army is not Tennessee & (Braxton) Bragg’s army.”
Most of the Federals who had charged the Confederate works were still in the field throughout June 4. Those included the wounded, whose cries were within earshot of the Confederates. Enemy sharpshooters prevented Federal details from going out to collect these men. Grant did not dispatch a messenger under flag of truce to request permission to collect the dead and wounded. Lee refused to send a messenger because most of those on the field were Federals under Grant’s responsibility.
Major-General Winfield Scott Hancock, commanding the Second Corps of the Potomac army, wrote Meade on the 5th asking if something could be done to help the wounded. Meade sent this request to Grant, who would have to arrange something with Lee because “the enemy do not recognize me as in command whilst you are present.” Grant wrote Lee:
“It is reported to me that there are wounded men, probably of both armies, now lying exposed and suffering between the lines. I would propose that hereafter when no battle is raging either party be authorized to send to any point between the pickets or skirmish lines, unarmed men bearing litters to pick up their dead or wounded without being fired upon by the other party… any other method equally fair to both parties you may propose for meeting the end desired will be accepted by me.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman of Meade’s staff delivered the message between the lines under a flag of truce at 3 p.m. Lee, knowing there were no wounded Confederates in the field, replied at 11 p.m., “I fear that such an arrangement will lead to misunderstanding and difficulty. I propose therefore, instead, that when either party desires to remove their dead or wounded a flag of truce be sent, as is customary. It will always afford me pleasure to comply with such a request as far as circumstances will permit.”
The next morning, Grant responded to Lee’s requirement of a truce flag to collect the survivors: “Your communication of yesterday is received. I will send immediately, as you propose, to collect the dead and wounded between the lines of the two armies, and will also instruct that you be allowed to do the same.” Grant proposed dispatching the burial details between 12 and 3 p.m.
However, Grant was proposing sending burial details under white flags while hostilities continued. This was not in accordance with military protocol in which all hostilities are suspended while the details were in the field. Therefore, Lee responded with “regret to find that I did not make myself understood in my communication.” He stated that he would only consent to Federal burial parties if they were requested “by a flag of truce in the usual way.”
Grant finally wrote, “The knowledge that wounded men are now suffering from want of attention compels me to ask a suspension of hostilities for sufficient time to collect them in; say two hours.” Lee formally consented late that evening, and the gathering of dead and wounded finally began on the 7th, four days after the battle. A Federal officer wrote that “after extraordinary delays an armistice was concluded… It was very acceptable for burying the dead; but the wounded were mostly dead too, by this time, having been there since the 3d.”
Only two survivors remained. The rest had either crawled back to their lines or died of wounds, thirst, or exposure. A member of the burial detail recalled:
“Four days of sun and rain, with the severe heat of summer, had passed over our slain, and the air was laden with insufferable putrescence. We breathed it in every breath, tasted it in the food we ate and water we drank. What seemed intolerable to us, was doubly so to the enemy, from their nearness to the dead, and from the fact that the prevailing winds, wafting over the field, carried the fumes directly to them. The granting of the truce was a necessity rather than a virtue.”
Another soldier recalled:
“Trenches were quickly dug, and into their depths the decomposed and unrecognizable bodies of men, who a short time before had been so full of life and daring, were hurriedly lowered–the brief time allotted for the humane purpose not permitting ceremony of any nature. It was nauseating to those who handled the disfigured corpses, while those to whom the duty of removing the wounded had been delegated performed their task with tender hands and bleeding hearts. In many instances maggots swarmed upon the wounds of those who had been maimed, presenting a revolting sight–one that no man, made however callous-hearted by war, would ever again wish to look upon.”
After burying the dead, Grant concluded his correspondence with Lee: “Regretting that all my efforts for alleviating the sufferings of wounded men left upon the battlefield have been rendered nugatory, I remain, &c., U.S. Grant, Lieutenant General.”
A Federal officer explained Grant’s reluctance to collect the casualties: “An impression prevails in the popular mind, and with some reason perhaps, that a commander who sends a flag of truce asking permission to bury his dead and bring in his wounded has lost the field of battle. Hence the resistance on our part to ask a flag of truce.”
Criticism of Grant intensified in the North and among his troops. Many noted that Lee had tactically won every engagement of the past month and inflicted a horrifying number of Federal casualties. Navy Secretary Gideon Welles wrote in his diary, “We have had severe slaughter. Brave men have been killed and maimed most fearfully but Grant persists.” Losing five men to Lee’s one, some began calling Grant “The Butcher.”
However, Grant’s supporters argued that the Federals were now closer to Richmond than they had been since 1862. They also noted that while Lee held Grant off for now, Lee had lost some 30,000 men of his own, and unlike Grant, he could not replace his losses. This forced Lee to stay on the defensive, while Grant retained the initiative. Grant wrote his wife Julia on the 7th:
“Today has been the quietest since leaving Culpeper. There has been no fighting except a little artillery skirmish firing and some skirmishing driving the enemy’s pickets south of the Chickahominy at two of the bridges below our main line. War will get to be so common with me if this thing continues much longer that I will not be able to sleep after a while unless there is an occasional gunshot near me during the night.”
Meanwhile, Meade endured criticism of his own. In one instance, Edward Crapsey of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Meade’s hometown newspaper) had written an article generally praising Meade but including one statement that enraged him:
“History will record, but newspapers cannot that on one eventful night during the present campaign Grant’s presence saved the army, and the nation too; not that General Meade was on the point of committing a blunder unwittingly, but his devotion to his country made him loth to risk her last army on what he deemed a chance. Grant assumed the responsibility, and we are still on to Richmond.”
Without specifying the “eventful night” in question, it was rumored that after the first day of the Battle of the Wilderness, Grant had overruled an urging by Meade to retreat back across the Rapidan River. Meade, reminded of past journalistic attacks by “Historicus” and others, summoned Crapsey to his headquarters and demanded to know the sources of his article. Crapsey said that he had merely reported “talk of the camp.” According to Meade, “I told him it was a base & wicked lie, and that I would make an example of him, which should not only serve to deter others from committing like offenses, but would give publicity to its lie & the truth.”
On the 8th, Federal Provost Guard Marsena Patrick seized Crapsey and placed a sign on him reading “LIBELER OF THE PRESS.” As army bands played the “Rogue’s March,” Crapsey was placed backwards on a mule and paraded through the camps and out of the army. Under Meade’s order: “The commanding general trusts that this example will deter others from committing like offenses, and he takes this occasion to notify the representatives of the public press that… he will not hesitate to punish with the utmost rigor all (such) instances.”
Meade wrote that this display raised troop morale, “for the race of newspaper correspondents is universally despised by the soldiers.” Grant did nothing to stop Meade, despite knowing Crapsey’s family in Illinois. Grant assured Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, “Gen. Meade on no occasion advised or counseled falling back toward, much less across, the Rapidan,” any rumors implying otherwise “are entirely idle and without the shadow of foundation.” Stanton told Meade that “the lying report… was not even for one moment believed by the President or myself.”
Marsena Patrick said that the public expulsion of Crapsey “will be a warning to his tribe.” But fellow reporters joined forces to oppose Crapsey’s expulsion by agreeing to omit Meade’s name from all future articles except when reporting Federal setbacks. They would also commend Grant for all future successes, essentially referring to Meade’s Army of the Potomac as Grant’s army.
Bibliography
- Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee. Scribner, (Kindle Edition), 2008.
- Jaynes, Gregory, The Killing Ground: Wilderness to Cold Harbor. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- McFeely, William S., Grant. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1981.
- Rhodes, James Ford, History of the Civil War, 1861-1865. New York: The MacMillan Company (Kindle Edition, Reservoir House, 2016), 1917.
- Sears, Stephen W., Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books, (Kindle Edition), 2017.
- Stanchak, John E. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Ward, Geoffrey C., Burns, Ric, Burns, Ken, The Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
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