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Note: LT. JOHN G. FISHER AND THE BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR Well into the Civil War, in March of 1864, President Lincoln appointed Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as General-in-Chief of the U.S. Armies (reportedly, then-Col. Robert E. Lee had been offered the same position in the Union Army when the war broke out, but he declined and became General of the Army of Northern Virginia instead). General Grant chose to make his headquarters in the field with Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac. General Meade, who had won at the Battle of Gettysburg, but who had been criticized for not pursuing General Lee’s Confederates following the battle, was opposed by several radical Republican politicians. Meade was rankled by the appointment of Grant on his turf.
In taking the field, Gen. Grant sought to end a three year standoff between the Confederate and the Union Armies in Virginia, and perhaps bring an early end to the war by capturing the Confederate Capitol, Richmond. Instead, he brought about the biggest defeat of his career, prompting author Ernest R. Ferguson to write a book calling the campaign Not War But Murder (Alfred Knoph, 2000). Grant lost primarily because he ignored the prevailing wisdom of the day that one should not conduct an assault a firmly intrenched army and because he mistakenly underestimated the Confederate Army by believing that it was “whipped.” Murder at 38.
Great-Great Grandfather Fisher (1843-1908) graduated frp, high school with honors. After working as a clothing clerk, he enlisted as a private in the New Jersey Volunteers in August of 1862. Under a Presidential call for 300,000 additional volunteers to serve for three years (including 5 regiments from New Jersey), the 14th N.J. Infantry Regiment, with Fisher now a First Sergeant, was fully organized, equipped, officered, and mustered into Federal service at the end of August at Camp Vredenburg, near Freehold New Jersey, with a full complement of 1,009 officers and men.
In September of 1862, the Regiment left New Jersey by train en route to Baltimore, Maryland. Upon arrival in Baltimore, the Regiment was dispatched to Frederick Junction, Md., on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a Provisional Brigade of the Middle Division of the Eighth Corps, to guard the bridge across the Monocacy River from the advance of General Lee’s army, which had entered the State of Maryland. First Sergeant Fisher was promoted to Sergeant Major in the 14th Regiment, K Company in November of 1862.
The 14th N.J. Regiment remained in the Frederick vicinity engaged in guard duty and assisted in protecting threatened and exposed points along the upper Potomac for almost a year, when in July of 1863, it was marched to the Front, and joined the main Army in the Third Corps’ Third Division, First Brigade.
In 1863, the Regiment participated in the battles at Manassas Gap, Virginia on July 17; Wapping Heights, Va. on July 24; Bristow Station, Va. on October 14; Kelly’s Ford, Va. on November 7; Brandy Station, Va. on November 8; Locust Grove, Va. on November 27; and Mine Run, Va. on November 26. At some point, the Regiment was detached from the Third Corps and joined the Sixth Army Corps, Third Division, First Brigade.
At the Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia, 21 year old Sergeant Major Fisher received a battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant as a replacement for a Lt. Wright. Somewhere along the line he was presented with a vintage 1861 5 shot ball and cap Navy Colt revolver number 11202 that was incscribed with “Presented to John G. Fisher,” but no date or rank. As a top sergeant in the infantry, in addition to a pistol, he carried a heavy saber to urge his rifle toting troops forward.
In March of 1864, General Grant took command of the Army and began the Wilderness campaign that ended at Cold Harbor, Virginia, a crossroads approximately 10-15 miles north-by- northeast of Richmond. In the spring of 1864, Lt. Fisher’s Regiment fought in battles at Wilderness, Va. in May 4-7, in which 18,000 Union and 11,000 Confederate troops were killed, wounded or missing; Spottsylvania and Spottsylvania Court House, Va. on May 8-11, where another 18,000 Union and 10,000 Confederate troops were k/w/m; the Battle of Po River on May 15; the Battle of North Anna River, Va. on May 23-24, where 2,500 soldiers per side were k/w/m, but where Lee blocked Grant’s direct route to Richmond and retained control of the vital Virginia Central rail line to the Shenandoah Valley; Hanover Courthouse, Va. on May 30-31; and finally Cold Harbor, Va. from June 1 to June 10, 1864.
Life in the field was difficult for everyone, even generals. By May 23, 1864, the war, dysentery and living conditions had so drained Lee that he appeared in a borrowed carriage instead of his steady horse, Traveller. Murder at 32.
Cold Harbor was an undistinguished cross roads that was important nonetheless because it controlled movement in five directions. Here, two years earlier, Lee had driven off McClellan in a bloody seven day battle at huge cost (9,000 Confederate casualties), at Gaines Mill, sometimes called the battle of First Cold Harbor, thereby saving Richmond. There is no harbor at Cold Harbor and the origin of the name is speculative, some believing it was named for an inn (a harbor for travelers) that provided cold food (apparently some inns provided hot food and others, just cold food), hence the name Cold Harbor.
Following the battle at Hanover Court House on May 31, 1864, the Sixth Corps marched south by southeast to Cold Harbor. The approach to Cold Harbor was long and hot for Gen. Wright’s Sixth Corps. After a night march of over 15 miles through heat and dust, Gen. Wright’s Sixth Corps arrived at Cold Harbor in the mid-afternoon on Wednesday, June 1, and, after marching through the rear area of three different union Corps, began filling the position vacated by Maj. Gen. Phillip H. Sheridan’s cavalry. By late afternoon, Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy”Smith’s 18th Corps and Wright’s 6th Corps were in position side by side and ready to carry out Grant’s orders to attack the Confederates.
On June 1, the Union’s 6th Corps, under Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright, and Baldy Smith’s 18th Corps faced Confederate Lt. Gen. Richard H. Anderson’s First Corps. The time, the Regiment was assigned to the First Brigade, Third Division of the Sixth Corps. The Sixth Corps’ Third Division was commanded by Brig. Gen. James B. Ricketts. The First Brigade, consisting of the 14th N.J. Regiment, the 106 th and 151st New York Regiment, the 87th Pennsylvania, and the 10th Vermont Regiments, was commanded by Col. William S. Truex, who was wounded on June 1, and Lt. Col. Caldwell K. Hall, and Col. John W. Schall who was wounded on June 3, 1864.
After unsuccessfully attacking the Union troops in the morning, Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s Division, with brigades under the command of under Brig. Gens. Wofford and Clingman, were busy throwing up breastworks to defend against Wright’s First, Second, and Third Divisions (including Lt. Fisher) under the command Brig. Gens. David Russell, Thomas H. Neil and James B. Ricketts, respectively.
At about 5:00 p.m., the 6th Corps and the 18th Corps attacked the Confederates in a confusing, uphill advance. At first, the Rebels were amazed at how many Union troops they killed. Union soldiers, whether by accident or orders, lay down to protect themselves from the defender’s firing, reloading, and firing into the thick, dark, blue mass of Union soldiers. After Confederate troops poured fifteen or twenty rounds of shot into the Union troops, they let up, and when a tenth of the Union troops later arose, the defenders used them for target practice.
After repulsing the first charge of Union troops, a second wave, consisting of a long column of concealed Yankee troops, drove into the Confederate works through a thinly defended marshy creek bottom/ravine that lay between two Rebel divisions. The Sixth Corps pushed forward up to three quarters of a mile, but did not break through Lee’s main line of defense and was not able to follow through.
Although the battle of Cold Harbor extended from June 1 to June 10, 1864, Lt. Fisher was wounded in the face by being shot with a ball that passed in the left side of the cheek of his face and out the right, cutting away teeth, and part of his tongue and roof of his mouth. Because of the resulting scars, Fisher wore a beard for the rest of his life.
Due to the number of Union troops who were killed or wounded trying to take entrenched Rebel positions, at the end of the day, a very large number of men were lying between the Union and Confederate lines, moaning for water and medical attention, sometimes for three days at a time before formal and informal truces could be set up to retrieve wounded.
Wounded Union soldiers, like Lt. Fisher, were transported to a town named White House on the Pamunkey River, below the ruins of a plantation house that had been owned by Martha Washington. Lacking sufficient ambulances, many of the wounded preferred to walk rather than be transported in springless wagons. Once at White House, the wounded were treated at a hospital installation consisting of 100 tents. Later, almost 14,000 wounded were evacuated by boat up the Chesapeake and Potomac Rivers to hospitals around Washington and Annapolis areas.
On August 11, 1864, Lt. Fisher was discharged from the Army under a disability at the officer’s hospital in Annapolis, Md., where he had been recuperating. He worked for a while in Washington for the War Department, married Jennie Baldwin (1846-1940) in Newark in 1867 then read for the law and became Clerk of Court for Hudson County.
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Genealogical History Of Hudson And Bergen Counties New Jersey
JOHN G. FISHER, formerly County Clerk of Hudson County, was born in New Brunswick, N. J., January 22. 1843, and is the son of J. G. Fisher, of New Brunswick, and his wife, Julia. daughter of Captain William Henry, of the merchant marine. Mr. Fisher received his education in the public schools, and after leaving school became a clerk in a clothing store in his native town. In June, 1862, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Fourteenth New Jersey Volunteers, being mustered out in August, 1864, with the rank of First Lieutenant. He was severely wounded during the battle of Cold Harbor. In 1867 he entered the law office of Judge W. T. Hoffman, of Jersey City, with whom he remained for several years. In 1874 he accepted a position under County Clerk John Kennedy, and continued to serve through several succeeding administrations. When County Clerk Dennis McLaughlin entered the office Mr. Fisher resigned and entered a real estate office, but subsequently resumed his position at Mr. McLaughlin's request. He was elected a member of the Board of Aldermen of Jersey City in 1873. Later he was elected a Justice of the Peace. In 1895 he was elected County Clerk of Hudson County and served five years. He cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln, and from that time to the present has been an active and zealous Republican. He is a prominent member of Zabriskie Post, No. 38, Grand Army of the Republic.
Mr. Fisher married Jennie E. Baldwin, of Newark. N. J., and has two sons and two daughters.
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