Justice at Cold Harbor

Justice (or Justus) Cheney
DOB: May 11, 1835, Hopkinton, NY
D: June 3, 1864, Cold Harbor, VA
Relation to Author: 2nd Great Grand Uncle, brother of 2nd great grandfather Jesse Cheney

Justice Cheney was born and lived in the north country of New York State – Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, NY. The census of 1860 list Justice living with his parents and working as a farm laborer. On December 18, 1863, at the age of 28, he enlisted in the Civil War and on December 29, 1863 he mustered out from Malone, NY.

On May 9, 1964 Justice joined Company G, 7th Regiment, NY Heavy Artillery. The records of Justice's service after joining are incomplete, but the US Army concluded that he did not live a month after joining the company. The army has concluded that Justice Cheney died from injuries suffered at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864.

The battle of Cold Harbor came 3 years after the beginning of the war and 10 months before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox (April 9, 1865) and Lincoln’s assassination (April 14, 1865). At this point in the war, General Grant, newly installed as General-in-Chief of the United States Army that spring, was trying to get around Lee’s right flank (Both Armies were in Virginia - with Lee’s army facing the Atlantic Ocean and Grant’s army facing the western United States), so he could destroy Lee’s army, then move on to Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, and end the war.

Grant fought the battles at Wilderness, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, then Cold Harbor – collectively known as Grant’s Overland Campaign – with this goal in mind. Grant was not successful and after Cold Harbor, both forces moved on and met at Petersburg. Here, both sides dug in and fought for 10 months. The trenches at Petersburg would be a preview for World War I.

It is often noted that more Americans died during the American Civil War than in any other conflict – which considering the magnitude of losses during more modern wars illustrates just how bloody our civil war was.

Cold Harbor stands out to me as one of bloodier battles in a very bloody war (estimated casualties for all 12 days are as many as 15,000 for Union Army and as many as 5,000 for the Confederate Army*). In Cold Harbor, the confederates were dug in. They say Grant threw three corps at the Confederates in seven minutes. In those seven minutes the confederates shot 7,000 men (this number is disputed by Rhea**).

Ward’s Civil War book notes that the charge at the beginning of Cold Harbor was the only mistake Grant admitted to. “If I had it to do over again, I don’t believe I’d make that charge at Cold Harbor," said Grant***.

It is not uncommon to hear that soldiers had a sense of foreboding before battles that would turn out to be devastating in the Civil War. Both Civil War and Atlas of the Civil War say soldiers at Cold Harbor felt that foreboding and pinned notes to their backs so they could be identified and family notified.

Apparently Justice never did this since the record on him is a bit unclear. The company muster rolls for the summer of 1964 have Justice marked as absent starting at the end of June. One roll marks him as injured, another notes that he was missing since Cold Harbor. The Roster for the 7th Artillery Regiment says Justice was injured at Cold Harbor and then absent during future rolls. The army concluded, and reasonably so far as I can tell, that Justice died from injuries sustained at Cold Harbor.

Thanks to Gordon C. Rhea’s book Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864, we know a good deal about the New York 7th Heavy Artillery Regiment’s role in the battle on June 3. In future posts, we’ll explore that role in the overall thrust of the battle. After that, we’ll look to see what that regiment did before Cold Harbor.

*The Civil War Battlefield Guide, Second Edition. Kennedy, Frances H. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 1998.
**Cold Harbor; Grant and Lee, May 26-June3, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea. Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
***Civil War; An Illustrated History by Geoffrey C. Ward. Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York.