Most Haunted Places in America: Cold Harbor Battlefield

It was a foot race and this time won by General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. The Confederates had reached Cold Harbor first and immediately started digging in ready for the inevitable assault. General Grant and the Union Army was pushing towards Richmond and licking their wounds after the Battle of the Wilderness.

The Confederate line would reach nearly 7 miles when done with Cold Harbor in the center. The soldiers used bayonets, coffee cups, shovels, knives and even cut open canteens to build the earthworks that could save their lives. When Grants army arrived, they dug in just opposite of the Confederates, at Cold Harbor the lines were a mere 300 yards apart.

General Lee had only one choice with Richmond only ten miles away, repel any Union attack at all cost. General Grant was eager, maybe too eager to crush Lee’s army and end the war; he ordered and all out frontal attack across terrain that neither he nor any of his officers knew anything about. The result was a massacre of epic proportions.

Union soldiers, well aware of their fate, wrote their names on pieces of paper and fastened them to their uniforms hoping that it would be easier to identify them later. On June 3rd 1864, at 4:30am, the charged was ordered. Union soldiers ran across an open field, Estimates are that 7,000 were killed or wounded in the first 30 minutes. All told the Union lost 13,000 men compared to 1,700 Confederates.

According to a Union survivor, “Southern riflemen opened fire with one, long rolling volley– A sheet of flame, sudden as lightning, red as blood, and so near, it seemed to singe the men’s faces.”

Lt. Colonel Charles Morgan said of the thousands lying in the blistering sun of June in Virginia, “Vain calls for relief smote upon the ears of their comrades at every lull in the firing.”

It wasn’t till later in his memoirs that Grant proclaimed that this was the charge he wished he never ordered. It was after this sound defeat that Grant stole away in the middle of the night and headed towards Petersburg.

Today the locals living in the area claim the battle still rages. Sounds of men screaming, gun fire and cannon fire are often reported to the local papers. Pictures of soldiers and strange anomalies are plentiful as well as seeing apparitions of Union soldiers on the battlefield. Visitors to the park claim an overpowering smell of gun powder at times and on the Union side a heavy feeling of sadness and pain.

The park is open from dawn till dusk and has a very informative Ranger station in the front. Beside the park is the Cold Harbor National Cemetery with the Garthright House right across the street from it. Both of these places is said to be haunted by a little girl.

Related posts:

1. Fort Monroe Hauntings
2. Sailors Creek Civil War Ghosts
3. Fort Fisher Hauntings
4. Hauntings at Fort Pulaski
5. Haunted Place: Chickamauga Battlefield