One of the episodes that demonstrates how General Ulysses S. Grant’s biographers continue an undue exultation of their hero—and simultaneously denigrate General Robert E. Lee—is the much-belated flag-of-truce after his horrendous defeat at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864. Probably hundreds of Union soldiers died unnecessarily as a result.
Grant’s former staff member, Adam Badeau, directly blamed Lee for the fiasco, since Grant supposedly had “at once” sent to the Confederate when he learned that the wounded could not be brought out due to firing. Actually, it took Grant two days just to begin communications. Lee supposedly used “devices” while the Union general did not. “Lee’s punctilio was satisfied,” although he “deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged” the sufferings of the wounded.
A modern biographer, Brooks Simpson, took a similar stance: “Lee had turned a muddled discussion over how best to recover the dead and wounded into an exercise in military protocol.” In fact, Grant—not Lee—muddled the discussion with unworkable procedures, while completely ignoring long-established army custom and usage and professing to follow Lee’s requests.
Geoffrey Perret made it entirely Lee’s fault: “Grant proposed to Lee that each side should allow the other to come out and collect its wounded. There was a traditional, bureacratic and time-consuming ritual called ‘the flag of truce’ for bringing in wounded men.” Only two of the hundreds of men suffering from wounds, 100° heat, and thirst were left alive. “The rest had perished to gratify Lee’s flag-of-truce obsession.” In reality, Grant could have sent in a request for a cease-fire under a flag of truce at any time; the delays were due to his intransigence.
Bruce Catton’s A Stillness at Appomattox had accurately evoked an uncaring Grant, who had not initially “bothered to seek a truce.” But after taking over Lloyd Lewis’ hagiographic series, Catton’s opinion changed markedly. His later military biography, Grant Takes Command, characterized Lee’s concurrence that parties retrieving the wounded should bear white flags as “exactly the procedure Grant had proposed on the morning of June 6.” Catton ignored the all-important difference that this would now be done under a cease-fire.
General Grant described in his Personal Memoirs how he “always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made,” as “no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained.” To the contrary, correspondence proved that, on June 3rd, the officers at Union headquarters thought rather well of the situation. Grant’s note to Henry Halleck told how the soldiers attacked, “driving the enemy within his entrenchments at all points” and were entrenching themselves, as close as fifty yards away. He declared that “our loss was not severe.” His staff member, William Rowley, misinformed Grant’s congressional ally Elihu Washburne that day about federal losses being between twenty-five hundred and three thousand, but the results of the engagement were “in our favor,” while morale stayed high. Even on June 4th, when Rowley recalculated the casualties that “must have reached near five thousand,” he somehow assumed that Lee’s were just as great. Chief-of-Staff John Rawlins agreed on both counts. None of this corroborated Grant’s description of regret. The most compelling evidence refuting Grant came from another of his staffers, Cyrus Comstock. Even though the likelihood of further attacks being successful would seem negligible, Comstock journaled on June 5th that “General Grant spoke yesterday of ordering another assault today.”
On June 4th, Union Medical Director Thomas A. McParlin related that 1,701 wounded men were retrieved that day, but another 1,100 “were left on the field,” “it being impossible to remove them, as they were between the lines and completely covered by the enemy’s sharpshooters.” If Grant, instead of starting siege operations and keeping the men where they were close to the enemy lines, had withdrawn the troops that night, casualties might have been significantly lessened. Grant added to the danger and discomfort suffered by both sides. He directed George Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, in response to rebel gunnery, “to retaliate by opening every battery that bears upon them at 12 or 1 to-night,” as this “will have the effect to wake up the whole of the enemy’s camp and keep them on the watch until daylight.” Meade rejected the idea, because “their reply, which they will undoubtedly make, will keep our people awake, and, in addition, it will interfere with the approaches I have ordered to be made to-night.” The three corps commanders in the centre and left wing agreed with Meade, preserving the relative quiet. Stranded in between the lines, the men dug in with whatever utensils lay at hand. Winfield Hancock’s assistant adjutant-general described the scene:
The day of the 4th was characterized by heavy artillery practice and by extreme sharpshooting. Whenever a head appeared for an instant, it became the target for a score of shots. … June 5th was, in its essential character, a repetition of the 4th. Through all this dreadful interval it was known that scores of our desperately wounded were lying in the narrow space between the lines, uncared for and without water.
“The two lines were crowded close together and the firing continuous on both sides,” a member of the 57th Massachusetts remembered; “every human figure that appeared in sight of the enemy became a target for a hundred muskets.” A contemporary account noted, “to raise their head above the parapet is certain death.” Snipers showed little compassion, and soldiers despised even those serving their own side. McParlin estimated that on the evening of June 4th there were still eight hundred fifty “wounded who are yet on the field under fire of sharpshooters, and who cannot be brought off.” In other places, the pickets on both sides negotiated private truces, to the dismay of their officers.
For two days, wounded and dying men lay forsaken under the burning sun, the cannon-fire, and the incessant sniping. Even stretcher-bearers became targets. Soldiers on both sides jeopardized their lives in bringing to safety those between the lines, especially their officers. Three days after the second Union assault on Vicksburg—and after vainly awaiting a request from Grant—Confederate General John Pemberton had ultimately broached the subject of succoring those federals still suffering in no-man’s land. At Cold Harbor, nothing happened for two days until June 5th at 1:00 p.m., when Hancock beseeched army headquarters: “Can any arrangement be made by which the wounded in front of Barlow can be removed? I understand men wounded on the 3d are still lying there.” Meade endorsed this request to Grant: “Is it possible to ask, under flag of truce, for permission to remove the wounded now lying between our lines, and which the enemy’s sharpshooters prevent me bringing off?” Grant refused to do it himself, but consented to Meade’s doing so, telling him that “a flag might be sent proposing to suspend firing where the wounded are, until each party get their own. I have no objection to such a course.”
Grant, although hereby acknowledging the need for sending a flag of truce and obtaining a cease-fire at Cold Harbor, ignored the military protocol that he had already been taught. A week after the battle in the Wilderness, a flag had been sent in Meade’s name for the removal of some four hundred wounded still held there by the rebels. The enemy refused, requiring “that a flag of truce be sent by order of Lieutenant-General Grant before their delivery can be effected.” Grant complied, requesting the transfer in his name from the “Headquarters Armies of the United States,” although he avoided using the phrase “flag of truce.” This was again rejected, not being addressed to General Lee. Now, at Cold Harbor, Meade had to remind him: “Any communication by flag of truce will have to come from you, as the enemy do not recognize me as in command whilst you are present.” In fact, the Army of the Potomac’s leader had dishonorably discharged a lieutenant-colonel for sending a flag of truce without authority at the North Anna. Later that day, General-in-Chief Grant departed from both protocol and practicality in applying to Lee:
It is reported to me that there are wounded men, probably of both armies, now lying exposed and suffering between the lines occupied respectively by the two armies. Humanity would dictate that some provision should be made to provide against such hardships. I would propose, therefore, that hereafter when no battle is raging either party be authorized to send to any point between the pickets or skirmish lines, unarmed men bearing litters to pick up their dead or wounded without being fired upon by the other party. Any other method equally fair to both parties you may propose for meeting the end desired, will be accepted by me.
This wholly inadequate proposal neither called for a flag of truce nor mentioned a suspension of hostilities. Killing litter-bearers would be as easy as shooting ducks on a pond for marksmen unrestrained by a cease-fire. And the attempt to equate the two sides was disingenuous, as almost all of the wounded from the last assault who remained between the lines wore blue. Lee responded:
I fear that such an arrangement will lead to misunderstanding and difficulty. I propose, therefore, instead, that when either party desires to remove their dead or wounded, a flag of truce be sent, as is customary. It will always afford me pleasure to comply with such a request as far as circumstances will permit.
While these notes passed back and forth, more men perished. Estimates of casualties on June 5th alone exceeded five hundred dead and wounded, “all from sharpshooters and intermittent artillery.” Blueclad soldiers made continual attempts to aid the fallen or retrieve their officers’ remains. “It was difficult to get Colonel [Peter] Porter’s body inside the works, owing to the vigilant attention of rebel sharpshooters,” a contemporaneous account noted, “but with the aid of a rope it was accomplished.” One division commander wrote that, “day and night, almost incessantly, the fight went on both with artillery and musketry.”
“On some parts of the line … no water was to be had,” with those wounded “who could not crawl, suffering intensely.” Confederates fired on attempts “to get to them with water and to bring them in” and even took shots at those trapped men trying to relieve themselves. By June 7th, the dead had “become a mass of corruption very offensive to everybody, friends and enemies, in the vicinity.” A New Yorker described how the corpses “were all as black as the blackest negro you ever saw, and were covered with maggots, and a most sickening stench arose from their remains which it was almost impossible to endure.” Now, Ulysses Grant ignored Robert E. Lee’s very specific request, but pretended that he was complying:
I will send immediately, as you propose, to collect the dead and wounded between the lines of the two armies, and will also instruct that you be allowed to do the same. I propose that the time for doing this be between the hours of 12 m and 3 p.m. to-day. I will direct all parties going out to bear a white flag, and not to attempt to go beyond where we have dead or wounded, and not beyond or on ground occupied by your troops.
As opposed to having the stretcher-bearers just bear flags, Grant’s adversary had specifically stipulated that “a flag of truce be sent” by the party making the request, the traditional method for obtaining a cease-fire to rescue the wounded and bury the dead. Grant, for the second time, tried to equate the two sides. Again, he failed to propose a cessation of hostilities. The same day, Lee regretted “to find that I did not make myself understood.” He replied:
I intended to say that I could not consent to the burial of the dead and the removal of the wounded between the armies in the way you propose, but that when either party desire such permission it shall be asked for by flag of truce in the usual way. Until I receive a proposition from you on the subject to which I can accede with propriety, I have directed any parties you may send under white flags as mentioned in your letter to be turned back.
Without Lee’s even mentioning a cease-fire, Grant knew it was required. He answered: “The knowledge that wounded men are now suffering from want of attention, between the two armies, compels me to ask a suspension of hostilities for sufficient time to collect them in, say two hours.” That satisfied Lee, who regretted that the request “was received at so late an hour as to make it impossible to give the necessary directions so as to enable you [Grant] to effect your purpose by daylight.” The Confederate commander set aside two hours that evening “and will avail myself of the privilege extended to those from this army to collect any of its wounded that may remain upon the field.” He not only agreed to a suspension of hostilities, but proscribed “all military movements” during the truce. Before it commenced, some of the common soldiers took matters into their own hands.
Because Lee’s consent for a truce on the evening of the 6th did not reach headquarters until midnight or just before, a revised timetable was needed. Grant waited until 10:30 the next morning before replying, but he did not reschedule the ceasefire, leaving it to the Confederate to propose a new time. In a parting shot, General Grant hypocritically implied that responsibility for this awfully sad state of affairs lay elsewhere (meaning Robert E. Lee): “Regretting that all my efforts for alleviating the sufferings of wounded men left upon the battle-field have been rendered nugatory, I remain, &c.” Added to the slow transmission of messages and incidental delays, Grant’s failure to respond promptly meant that four days passed from the end of the assault before the official rescue began. “Very few wounded were collected,” as “the greater number had died of their wounds and exposure,” except for those recovered earlier. A Massachusetts soldier welcomed the cease-fire, “as the stench was terrible.” The Richmond Daily Dispatch, scathingly agreed:
On the evening of Monday Grant sent in a flag of truce for permission to bury his dead, thereby acknowledging a defeat, in spite of all his shuffling to avoid such an acknowledgement. Doubtless, had it depended on him alone, he would have suffered them to lie where they fell until the flesh had rotted off their bones; but prisoners say his men had already been rendered almost mutinous by his inhuman indifference, and the pressure outside was too great. The permission asked was granted, as a matter of course. The removal of so many decaying carcasses will prove a great relief to our soldiers, whose position was becoming almost intolerable from the stench.
To summarize this unforgivable incident, Grant was wrong time and time again: (1) For forty-eight hours after the June 3rd assault, he failed to do anything to bring in the wounded who were in no-man’s land until he was finally prodded to do so; (2) He then agreed with Meade that the situation called for the sending of a flag of truce under which to request a cease-fire. (3) He initially sent the issue back to Meade even though he knew (or should have known) that it was his responsibility as the Union commander and when there was nothing stopping him from immediately sending such a flag of truce; (4) He first proposed a dangerously unfeasible method, without any mention of a flag of truce or cease-fire; (5) Despite assuring Lee that “Any other method equally fair to both parties you may propose for meeting the end desired, will be accepted by me,” and Lee’s reply that “I propose, therefore, instead, that when either party desires to remove their dead or wounded, a flag of truce be sent, as is customary,” Grant ignored Lee and instead offered to have the litter-bearers bear white flags, again without sending a request for a cease-fire under a flag-of-truce; (6) Lee turned back this one, as well, for not being a request for a cease-fire under a flag of truce. (7) It was therefore ridiculous for Grant (and his supporters) to blame Robert E. Lee or anyone else.
Grant’s desire for another attack perhaps explained his delay in asking for a truce, as that would have obstructed such plans. He also might not have wanted any interference with projected siege operations; the later suspension of such proceedings coincided with the request for a cease-fire. Probably the most obvious and likely reason for withholding his cease-fire request, however, was its symbolic admission of his defeat. Ulysses S. Grant intensely disliked that topic, whether it was for the potential harm it could do to the Union army’s morale and/or for the damage done to his own reputation.