Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[328] Hardin's brigade, of the Pennsylvania Reserves, and compelled it to fall back to the Shady Grove road, when General Crawford brought up the remainder of the Reserves, and Kitching's brigade, and effectively repulsed an impetuous assault by Rodes, who attempted to turn Warren's left. This repulse enabled the Nationals to establish the left of their line on the Mechanicsville pike, not much more than seven miles from Richmond. To relieve General Warren, when first assailed by Rodes, Meade had ordered an attack along the whole line. Only Hancock received the order in time to act before dark. He moved forward, drove the Confederate pickets, and captured and held their rifle-pits. Meanwhile, Wright had formed on the left of Hancock and Burnside on his right; while Lee strengthened his own right, now menaced by Warren.

Grant was now satisfied that he would be compelled to force the passage of the Chickahominy River, and he was equally satisfied that it would be folly to make a direct attack upon Lee's front. So he planned a flank movement, and prepared to cross the Chickahominy on Lee's right, not far from Cool Arbor,¹ where roads leading to Richmond, White House, and other points diverged. That important point was seized by Sheridan on the afternoon of the 31st, after a sharp contest with Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry and Clingman's infantry; and toward it Wright's corps, moving from the right of the army, in its rear, marched that night, unobserved by the enemy, and reached it the next day.

June, 1, 1864.

At the same time, and toward the same place, a large body of troops under General W. F. Smith, which had been called from the Army of the James at Bermuda Hundred, were moving, and arrived at Cool Arbor just after Wright's corps reached that place, and took position on the right of the latter. General Smith had left Bermuda Hundred on the 29th, with four divisions of the Tenth and Eighteenth Corps, sixteen thousand in number, which had been taken in transports around to White House. The two armies were now upon the old battle-field of Lee and McClellan two years before. The Confederate line, which had just been re-enforced by troops under Breckinridge, extended, with its cavalry on its flanks, a short distance from Hanover Court-House, down nearly to Bottom's Bridge. A. P. Hill's corps occupied its right, Longstreet's its center, and Ewell's its left.

On the morning of the first of June, an attempt was made by Hoke's division to retake Cool Arbor. Sheridan had been ordered to hold it at all hazards, and he did so. His men dismounted, and fought desperately with their carbines. The assailants were repulsed, but were quickly re-enforced by McLaws's division. Wright's corps arrived in time to meet this new danger; and when, at three o'clock in the afternoon, General Smith came up, after a march of twenty-five miles,² he was met by an order to form on the right of. the Sixth Corps,³ then in front of Cool Arbor, on the road leading to Gaines's Mill, and co-operate in an immediate attack upon the Confederates.