The brutal side of the June 3 assault not many people know of

The June 3 assault in 1862 was one of the deadliest battles during the Battle of Cold Harbor with the most calsualties - around 6,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. However, after the assault ended, wounded Federal soldiers were left on the battlefield for four days after the June 3 assault.

The massive assault on June 3 ended with Union soldiers using cups, bayonets, and their hands and feet to dig out rudimentary protection under the mouths of the Confederate guns. These were quickly developed into more elaborate entrenchments, although in some places the opposing lines were less than 75 yards apart. Sharpshooting was particularly fierce for days. Ulysses S. Grant, perhaps unwilling to admit defeat, delayed the process of requesting a formal truce to gather the several hundred wounded that were immobile between the lines. It was not until June 7 that the terms were arranged and Union soldiers ventured into no-man’s-land to recover their comrades. Most of them had already died. One Federal remembered that “I saw no live man lying on this ground. The wounded must have suffered horribly before death relieved them, lying there exposed to the blazing southern sun o' days, and being eaten alive by beetles o' nights.”