Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsHurrah! The Last Shout Went Up At Cold Harbor
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
Lt. Colonel Wiley J. Williams of the Georgia 49th Confederate forces gazed out at the landscape of Cold Harbor. He had been here before. It was now June of 1864. Back then, it had been June of 1862. Two years ago, fresh into battle as a private he had, either from pumping adrenaline, necessity, or courage (labeled gallantry in those days), distinguished himself in the face of enemy fire. He remembered how all looked lost and then the 49th and the others rallied and pushed the Yankees back. That was a great moment for him and the others because Richmond had been saved and the South would not face immediate defeat. It was to be looked upon as one of the most significant battles of the War. Defeat had come so close, yet , it was evaded, and he and the others would march again into battle after battle. For that fleeting moment of doing the best he could and surviving at Old Cold Harbor, or Gaines Mill, he was awarded a battlefield commission as a first lieutenant. Sadly, he must have thought of the real heroes whose reward was not of this world. Like the poet it must have occurred to him that these who sacrificed all would not grow old as he would and would never experience the infirmities of old age. They lived young and died young. Now, at Cold Harbor again, he was seeing the remains of other heroes being harvested for burial. And it was a gruesome sight.
To Wiley J. Williams, and the others, things were always changing because of these burials. Back at home at Jacksonville and China Hill they were putting people in the ground just as he and his comrades were putting soldiers in the ground in Virginia. His sister, Martha Williams Boney, was burying her daughter, Rebecca, just the year before and the same month of the sadness of the death came the joy of a newborn son, Alexander. Now, in 1864, in Telfair, they were burying Margaret McLean, Rebcker Marchant, Thomas S. Willcox, Charlotte McRae, and William W. Clemen(t)s and a bunch more folks. Death had become a way of life and yet you never got used to it.
Wiley J. Williams had more coming, too. Later he would lose three wives, the first two, sisters, in the space of a year - Mary and Rebecca Willcox Williams - buried at Old Concord Cemetery. Then the third died - Molly (or Mollie) Mizell, sister of Confederate soldier Griffin Mizell.
But right now Wiley J. didn't know all that sad news - it was in his future. And the rest of this War was in his future and it wasn't so pretty.
But Cold Harbor had a significance for Wiley J. Williams and the others. They saw it repeated. Two years apart but fighting was fighting and death was death. But this last one had some new marks on it.
The last Cold Harbor (1864) made it quite apparent to General Lee and the South that he had lost much of his brain trust - his tried and true lieutenants. "Old Blue Light" Stonewall Jackson had been gunned down by his own men the previous year. Gone. Almost to the day a year later, General Longstreet had been seriously wounded. Gone - for the time being anyway. And General Jeb Stuart had been eliminated at Yellow Tavern. Gone. Those were the kind of folks you don't find at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. And Lee knew that.
Of course, the North was facing the same problem but they had some to take their places. "Uncle John" Sedgwick had bought the farm a month earlier when he didn't think a Tennessee sharpshooter "could hit an elephant at this distance." He hit Uncle John - right under the left eye. Gone. And General Wadsworth was gone and everyone thought Joshua L. Chamberlain was gone. They even printed his obituary. But he lived to become Governor of Maine and President of Bowdoin College and obtain The Medal of Honor because he wouldn't let them forget he should have it.
But the recent Cold Harbor told the South another thing. This War was no longer about frontal attack and gallant charges. This War was now about entrenchment. Digging in and blasting away from a point of advantage. Grant and Lee might have been on different sides. But they agreed on one thing - too many lives had been lost. But, mind you, that didn't keep the cigar-chomping determined Grant from pursuing Lee to the ends of the earth to eliminate him - regardless of how many lives he had to give up. And he knew he had more to spare than Lee.
Another thing Grant did caused Lee more than a little anxiety. He quit allowing prisoners of war to be exchanged. Not only did this cost Lee some 50,000 armed soldiers on the fighting fronts but it also obligated him to try to guard and feed the 50,000 men in blue he was forced to keep as prisoners. To say the least, the mothers of America did not care for the tactics of General Grant. Not only had he not wanted to admit defeat at Cold Harbor (which was rather obvious) but he let thousands suffer and die on the field for four days while he tried to get Lee to let him go out there without a flag of truce. Now he was adding insult to injury by refusing to allow prisoners to be exchanged so they could escape the horrors of a shortage of food and medical supplies, if not downright ornery treatment (and this applied to both sides). Grant knew the War now was a game of numbers and Lee knew the South was running out of those numbers. He could not afford to lose men.
But Cold Harbor was past now. The lurching armies headed off in the direction of Richmond - no! For once Lee was fooled. Grant had come to his senses. Even he admitted he had fed too many to the slaughter at Cold Harbor.
Visions of the tough old General Winfield Scott must have reappeared to Grant. He would put Lee in a vise and slowly, but surely, squeeze the life out of him and the Southern fighting forces - what was left of them. The old general had called it The Anaconda Plan.
Instead of making a direct assault upon Richmond, the capital, he would go to the south of that city about twenty miles to another strategic town - Petersburg. Petersburg had all the rail lines that fed Richmond but one. It was a communications and supply base. Cut it off and Richmond would be cut off. Grant pursued his plan. Unfortunately, for him, one of his generals did not take the opportunity at hand and charge General Beauregard and his meager contingent of soldiers. This gave Lee time to come with the necessary reinforcements.
This mistake would prolong the War for almost another year. That word, so dreaded by Lee, but now so necessary for survival, stuck its ugly head up again - "siege." Siege it would be and there was nothing he could do about it but hope and pray the people of the North and the politics (and politicians) of some of the folks up there would get tired of this crazy War and quit.
Unfortunately, for Lee, this was the farthest thing from the mind of General U.S. (Unconditional Surrender) Grant. He had come too far, lost too many men, been criticized too much (Mrs. Lincoln among them), lost too much sleep, and had his pride bashed too many times, to even think about quitting. He would now wait for the kill.
It was the last hurrah. It was all over but the shouting and the last one of those just went up at Cold Harbor, Virginia in June of 1864.
Credits:
Telfair History 1807-1987;
Telfair Soldiers In The Civil War by Robert H. (Bob) Swain;
The Civil War by Geoffrey Ward and Ric and Ken Burns;
The Telfair Cemetery Book by Moses M. Coleman, Jr. and Emilie K. Hartz;
Jacque Hardy for the photograph of Lt. Col. Wiley J. Williams;
various other sources.
