Explanation: Battle of Cold Harbor, (May 31–June 12, 1864), disastrous defeat for the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65) that caused some 18,000 casualties. Continuing his relentless drive toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, General Ulysses S. Grant ordered a frontal infantry assault on General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops, who were now entrenched at Cold Harbor, some 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Richmond. The result was Lee’s last major victory of the war and a bloodbath for the Union army. An earlier battle at Cold Harbor, on June 27, 1862, is sometimes called the Battle of Gaines’s Mill, the First Battle of Cold Harbor, or the Battle of Chickahominy River and was part of the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25–July 1), which ended the Peninsular Campaign (April 4–July 1), the large-scale Union effort earlier in the war to capture Richmond; it, too, was a Confederate victory.
