The casualties were astounding, a stouinstounding to soldiers, generals and those left back home. Amidst the staggering losses at cole harbor, for every soldier killed, wounded or captured, there was a family. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters that also felt the loss. The loss of the men that fell at cole harbor in the spring of 1864 reverb rasreverberated thr kmunlts a communities across the north and south. The battlegrounds left indelible kbag impacts on the living left behind. So, too, were the believes of the men who fought that bloody spring. Indeed, in spite of so many lost lives, those believes and ideas about nation, government and home became even more deeply enslie enshrined in the hearts and minds of those left to fight on tonight to reflect upon and learn from today. Writing soon after the war with a perspective on hindsight. Sally putnam came to believe that in its own unique way, cole harbor had been a landmark event in the 1866 Campaign Across Central
Land. Our success in this Campaign Must ensure the integrity of the United States by the final overthrow of the rebellion. Success will give a new life to our country, and a new faith to the stability of free government to the world. It will also determine the next presidency as certainly as if the votes were counted. But if we fail in this campaign, that failure will be the greatest disaster in modern history. Upon general grant there now concentrates the deepest interest with which the world ever watched the actions of a single soldier. He is the foremost man in the greatest contest of the age. When the nation and the world wanted to know how the civil war was going, they looked to virginia. That spring, robert e. Lee and his army shone clearly as the confederacys greatest hope. Ulysses s. Grant had come east to manage the armies in virginia, but ulysses s. Grant had never met robert e. Lee in battle. At Charlottesville A charlottesville newspaper editor wrote in april, the conflict