Cold Harbor • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The “Confederate Fortifications” wayside marker is at the first stop along the Cold Harbor Battlefield Auto Tour.
The view looks east from behind the ‘Confederate Fortifications’ wayside marker towards the well-preserved remains of Confederate breastworks. The land beyond the fortifications was open field in 1864 when Union forces tried to attack across it.
Text from the marker:
Confederate Fortifications
At Cold Harbor the quality of a soldier’s entrenchments could mean the difference between life and death. Men in both armies incorporated lessons learned earlier in the campaign at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania to make their Cold Harbor fortifications even stronger. They piled up dirt and framed it with wood to create durable and defensible positions. The wood has rotted and the earth erodes slowly, yet even today these sagging lines convey power and security. Seven consecutive miles of defenses like these stood between Grant and Richmond in June 1864. Modern historian Earl Hess, in his study on the evolution of fortifications in the Overland Campaign, calls the surviving entrenchments at Cold Harbor “the most singular set Civil War fieldworks we have.”
The diary of Edward R. Crockett, 4th Texas Infantry, illustrates the daily pressure of life in these trenches:
June 4th
“We work hard last night & dawn on the 4th have a heavy work completed. We have quit sleeping almost entirely.”
June 5th
“Last night we strengthened our works with a stockade & a cheaveau de freize, we worked all night, skirmishing all day….”
From the caption to the background drawing:
When the armies withdrew on June 12-13, they left behind a scarred landscape. Many of the entrenchments survive today because they were so substantial that farmers proved unwilling or unable to destroy them.
Location of the marker
The marker is on the Cold Harbor Battlefield Auto Tour. (37°35’27.2″N 77°17’19.9″W) It is on the east side of the drive (which is one way northbound at this point) , about 0.4 mile north of the Visitor Center.