Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1911 — STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR

GEN. GRANT AT COLD HARBOR Gon. Lee's Victory Added Fresh Levrets to Southern Leader's Brow > and Gave New Hope. General Grant and his leglane of the Second, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth corps and a -portion of Sheridan’s cavalry, after having literally tramped through blood in the Wilderness, at Laurel HUI, Spottsylvania and North Anna, on the way to Richmond, began to concentrate at Cold Harbor, a few miles from Richmond, June 1, 1864, writes Lieut Col. J. A. Watrous in the Chicago Record-Herald. There was a sharp fight that day, and for nine days that devoted army, whose losses from May IB approximated 40,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, was constantly under musketry and cannon firing, engaged In several of the most bitterly con- , tested actions of the campaign from Culpepper and Appomattox. At Cold Harbor General “Baldy" Smith’s corps, the Eighteenth, joined ;the Army of the Potomac and took part tn those memorable battles which threatened Richmond so greatly that President Davis, other high officials and many citizens were prepared tc .flee at an hour’s notice, trains having been kept in waiting to convey them out of the reach of the northern army. There Was warfare in all of its savagery at Cold Harbor. Both armies fully realized the importance of every move. General Lee and his men felt that they must fight as never before to save the capital of the Confederacy and Generals Grant and Meade and their followers realized the need of a successful issue of the Cold Harbor engagements. General Grant's army was at a great disadvantage throughout the Cold Harbor campaign. June 2, at short time , 'before sundown. General Lee concentrated a large force on the Union right, and made a fierce attack upon General Burnside’s Ninth corps. The Ninth corps was driven back and swung partially in the rear of the Fifth and Second corps. Reinforce ments, hurried to the aid of the Ninth, succeeded in repulsing the onslaught iand in driving back the victorious Confederates to the position they held 'before the attack was made. That battle did not end until dark. All along both lines, Union and Confederate, trenches, not unlike graves, had been dug for protection. Scores of men who exposed themselves in the performance es duty or through curl-

oslty were killed and fell Into these grave-like trenches. The movement of the troops from ithe right and left of Hancock's Second corps to supporting distance of that peerless soldier’s position gave warning that a desperate assault was soon to be made. The whole army was jfn waiting, and expected to partlciipate. The battle came with a mighty clash, and a charge as heroic as Pickett’s at Gettysburg. Within a short space of time there fell on June 3, 1864, at Cold Harbor, 17,000 men, killed or wounded. It was a disastrous Union defeat The. result was well calculated to dishearten the splendid army that had fought so many times and suffered so frequently without much gain for its cause. But, strange to say, as well as fortunate to say, It did not lose confidence; it was still hopeful, it was still as determined as was its unyielding, hopeful, confident commander, the silent Grant. Just before the army left Cold Har>bor there took place, out of range of rifles but not of cannon, a meeting and .a parting that was pathetic. One June 11,1864, the Iron Brigade began to dissolve. The three years of the Second Wisconsin had expired, and they were relieved from the battle line and sent jhome for mustering out It weuld have been natural for the men of the Second to be overjoyed at permission to go home after three years of such work as they had done. But there were faces as sad among the little iparty as tt marched away as were found among those of the Sixth and ißeventb Wisconsin, Nineteenth Indiana and Twenty-fourth Michigan, who soberly watched them until /they disappeared over the MIL

Battle Didn't End Until Dark.