army corps had been properly timed and properly conducted, they could have reached the open country before the Confederate corps could have engaged them.  But when the senseless assaults of fortified positions, which occurred in endless succession, from Spottsylvania Court House to Petersburg are considered, it will be impossible to find sufficient excuse for them.  They were in nearly every case the direct result of defective staff arrangements and the lack of proper prevision.  In a few instances they were due to positive incompetency on the part of subordinate commanders, while on several notable occasions there was a woeful lack of responsible oversight and supervision on the part of those whose duty it should have been to exercise both.  Before the campaign was half over it had come to be an axiom among both officers and men that a well-defended rifle trench could not be carried by a direct attack without the most careful preparation nor even then without fearful loss.  Such undertakings were far too costly, and far too frequently ended in failure, to justify them when they could be avoided.  But no experience, however frequent or bloody, no remonstrance however forcible, could eradicate the practice of resorting to them occasionally.  Rawlins was utterly opposed to them and never failed to inveigh against them but the advice of more than one trusted and influential staff officer was uniformly in favor of assaulting fortified positions.  The favorite refrain at general headquarters is said to have been “Smash `em up!  Smash `em up!”

It was with special reference to the application of this method of procedure at Cold Harbor, that General Smith afterwards gave vent to his indignation in words of the bitterest criticism.  It will be remembered that the entire army confronting the enemy had advanced on that fatal day in compliance with a general order to attack “all along the line,” which was done in a half-hearted, desultory manner, foreboding failure and defeat.  Not a soul among the generals or in the fighting line dreamed of success and not a commander from highest to lowest except Smith and Upton, made any adequate preparation to achieve it.  Officers and men alike felt that they had been ordered to a sure defeat.  Knowing intuitively what awaited them, they wrote their names on scraps of paper and pinned them to their coats in order that their bodies might be identified after the slaughter was over.  This done they advanced in long and wavering lines of blue against the enemy’s bristling breastworks and rifle pits, and were mowed down like ripe grain before the scythe.  In almost as short a time as it takes to recount the useless sacrifice, over twelve thousand Union soldiers were killed and wounded, without shaking the enemy’s position or inflicting serious injury upon him.