na before Grant. When the Union
leader arrived on the scene he found the position of his advance
division dangerous and quickly withdrew with the loss of two thousand
men.

Once more he determined to turn Lee's flank and hurled his army toward
Cold Harbor. This time he reached his chosen ground before his opponent
and on the 31st, Sheridan's cavalry took possession of the place. The
two armies had rushed for this point in waving parallel lines, flashing
at each other death-dealing volleys as they touched.

Both armies immediately began to entrench in their chosen positions.
Lee, familiar with his ground, had chosen his position with consummate
skill. On June the 1st, the preliminary attack was made at six o'clock
in the afternoon. It was short and bloody. The Northern division under
Smith and Wright charged and lost two thousand two hundred men in an
hour.

Again Lee had placed his guns and infantry in a fiery crescent on the
hills arranged to catch both flanks and front of an advancing army.

Grant's soldiers knew that grim work had been cut out for them on that
fatal morning the third day of June. As John Vaughan walked along the
lines the night before he saw thousands of silent men busy with their
needle and thread sewing their names on their underclothing.

The hot, close weather of the preceding days had ended in a grateful
rain at five o'clock, which continued through the night and brought the
tired, suffering men gracious relief.

Grant decided to assault the whole Confederate front and gave his orders
for the attack at the first streak of dawn at four-thirty.

The charging blue hosts literally walked into the crater of a volcano
flaming in their faces and pouring tons of steel and lead into their
stricken flanks. Nothing like it had ever before been seen in the
history of war.

_Ten thousand men in blue fell in twenty minutes!_

The battle was practically over at half past seven o'clock.

General Smith received an order from Meade to renew the assault and
flatly refused.

The scene which followed has no parallel in the records of human
suffering. Its horror is inconceivable and unthinkable. Through the
summer nights the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying rose in
pitiful endless waves. And no hand was lifted to save. For three days
they lay begging for water, groaning and dying where they had fallen. It
was certain death to venture in that storm-swept space. Only a few brave
men fought thei