Cold Harbor • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The “We Have Broken Through” trailside marker is the sixth marker on the Cold Harbor primary walking trail. It is above the swampy ravine that Union attackers used as cover to break the Confederate line on June 1.
The marker looks over the small ravine that the Union Sixth Corps used as cover to break the Confederate line on June 1.
Text from the marker:
We Have Broken Through
This ravine played a critical role in the early stages fighting at Cold Harbor. On the afternoon of June 1, 1864, Thomas L. Clingman’s North Carolinians and William T. Wofford’s Georgians, attempting to hold this position, failed to occupy the low swampy ground in the ravine.
Union soldiers of the Sixth Corps took advantage of this weakness by attacking along the drainage and piercing the Confederate defenses. Southern reserves quickly rushed forward and drove back the attackers, sealing the break in the line. A new line was then built a short distance to the west.
Location of the marker
This is the sixth marker on the Cold Harbor primary walking trail. It is a short distance past the previous marker, “A Captured Trench”.