Cold Harbor is misleadingly named. The area just north of Richmond, Virginia is hot for most of the year. Nor will you find any kind of river or port there.
In June 1864, it was the site of a fortnight- long battle during the American Civil War, part of General Grant’s Overland Campaign. A year later, photographer John Reekie visited the battlefield and captured pictures of men as they roamed the fields, collecting and reburying the bones of dead soldiers.
The bulk of the fighting had taken place on 3 June, when Grant ordered that the fortifications of Confederate General Robert E Lee be attacked early in the morning. The plan was a suicide mission. Neither Grant nor his second-in-command had inspected the battlefield properly. If they had, they might have realised that their opponent was too well entrenched.
