Cold Harbor • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The “Scars of Conflict” trailside marker is along the mile long hiking trail in Hanover County Park. (see map below)
Text from the marker:
Scars of Conflict
Twelve days of combat transformed this once pastoral landscape. With every shift of a line of battle, the soldiers dug new works. Reserve troops dug too, well behind the front lines. By battle’s end, earthworks gouged the landscape in every direction, many times without apparent order.
The earthworks in front of you are typical of the hundreds of pits that remain on the Cold Harbor battlefield. We do not know who built them, or even why; perhaps they sheltered the cannoneers of the battery above you. One thing is certain: these mounds symbolize the arrival of a new, futuristic style of warfare. The days of open-field combat were over.
Location of the marker
The marker is on the one mile walking trail in Hanover County Park. (37°35’06.0″N 77°16’37.5″W) The park is on the south side of Cold Harbor Road (Virginia Route 156) about 650 feet east of the National Cemetery and next to Gathright House.