Cold Harbor • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
Gathright House is about nine miles east of Richmond, Virginia on the Cold Harbor battlefield. It is surrounded by Hannover County Park, which has an excellent battlefield walking trail. It is also across the road from Cold Harbor National Cemetery.
The house and the small parcel of land around it is part of the Richmond National Battlefield Park. The house itself is not open to the public.
Garthright House was used as a Union field hospital for ten days during the 1864 Battle of Cold Harbor. Nearly a hundred men were buried in the front yard before being reinterred in the National Cemetery after the war. After the Union army moved on to Petersburg the Confederates took over the house and continued to use it as a hospital.
Garthright House on the Cold Harbor battlefield
Two wayside markers tell more of the story:
Garthright House wayside marker
The “Garthright House” wayside marker is in front of Garthright House.
Text from the marker:
Garthright House
“We charged across the open field under a murdrous storm of balls & canister shot…& soon gained complet[e] possesion of all the buildings….We soon fortified as best we could the aproaches to the house by barrells & farming tools & held the position….”
June 1, 1864, diary of John F.L. Hartwell, 121st New York infantry
The Garthright House stood in the path of charging troops at two battles: Gaines’ Mill in 1862 and Cold Harbor in 1864. The house belonged to Miles Garthright, a Confederate soldier whose cavalry unit saw action around Cold Harbor early in the battle. Portions of the building might have been 100 years old by the time of the Civil War. The nearby enclosed brick cemetery dates from the middle of the 1700s, if not earlier.
Union surgeons used the house as a field hospital in June 1864. Mrs. Garthright took refuge in the basement, where “with fear and trembling” she watched as blood dripped through the cracks in the floor and into the cellar. At least 97 soldiers died from their wounds here and received temporary burial in the front yard. Two years later the Cold Harbor National Cemetery opened across the road and work crews reburied all of the Union dead there.
From the caption to the background photo:
In 1887 returning veterans from New England visited the historic house and the Garthright family. Mrs. Margaret Garthright is seen beside the steps. The photograph shows the rear of the house.
Family Cemetery trailside marker
The ‘Family Cemetery’ trailside marker is on the west side of the drive for the Garthright House. It looks toward the brick wall of the cemetery, which is about 50 yards west of the house and the parking area.
Text from the marker:
Family Cemetery
“Near Cold Harbor stands the house where my father was born, and not far from the house there is a graveyard, surrounded by a brick wall…there sleep the generations of my forefathers. In that enclosure is buried Mr. James Hooper.
Dr. Thomas W. Hooper, 1895
James Hooper died in 1754. Following the Hoopers, the old farmhouse and surrounding fields were home to the Garthrights during the Civil War and the McGhees in later years. Members of both families probably are buried in this cemetery.
After the battles in 1862 and 1864, numerous Union soldiers were interred haphazardly on the property. In 1866, most of their remains were recovered and removed to the military cemetery across the street. It is unknown whether any soldiers are still buried here in the family cemetery.
Location of Garthright House
Gathright House is a little over a half mile east of the Cold Harbor Visitor Center, across Cold Harbor Road from the National Cemetery. (37°35’20.6″N 77°16’47.9″W)