concentrate for battle.

The two armies were now drawing all available force together
round the strategic center of Cold Harbor, only nine miles east
of Richmond. On the thirty-first Sheridan drove out the enemy
detachments there, and was himself about to retire before much
superior reinforcements when he got Grant's order to hold his
ground at any cost. Nightfall prevented a general assault till
the next morning, when Sheridan managed to stand fast till
Wright's whole corps came up and the enemy at once desisted. But
elsewhere the Confederates did what they could to stave the
Federals off from advantageous ground on that day and the next.
The day after--the fateful third of June--the two sides closed in
death-grips at Cold Harbor.

On this, the thirtieth day of Grant's campaign of stern attrition
and would-be-smashing hammerstrokes at Lee, these were his orders
for attack: "The moment it becomes certain that an assault cannot
succeed, suspend the offensive. But when one does succeed, push
it vigorously, and, if necessary, pile in troops at the
successful point from wherever they can be taken." The trouble
was that Grant was two days late in carrying on the battle so
well begun by Sheridan, that Warren's corps was two miles off and
entirely disconnected, and that the three remaining corps formed
three parts and no whole when the stress of action came.

At dawn Meade's Army of the Potomac (less Warren's corps) began
to take post for the grand attack that some, more sanguine than
reflecting, hoped would win the war. When it was light the guns
burst out in furious defiance, each side's artillery trying to