Please join us for a Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours Lecture Series! Our next lecture will be:  HISTORYtalks: Six Days of Awful Fighting: Cavalry on the Roads to Cold Harbor by Eric Wittenberg:  Cost is $5 per person. Zoom Login details will be sent with your email registration confirmation.

Most students of the American Civil War know about the terrible fighting that occurred at Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia, from June 1–3, 1864. However, few know about the severe cavalry fighting leading up to the battle of Cold Harbor. From May 27 to June 1, the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac and the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia slugged it out at places like Hanovertown, Haw’s Shop, Matadequin Creek, Hanover Court House, Ashland, and, finally, Cold Harbor itself, setting the stage for the well-known infantry battle that broke out on the afternoon of June 1, 1864.One cannot truly understand how the battle of Cold Harbor played out unless one also understands how the armies got there. The May 28, 1864, battle of Haw’s Shop was considered the harshest cavalry battle of the war to date; but, it was eclipsed two weeks later by the battle of Trevilian Station. Haw’s Shop marked Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton’s emergence as the new commander of the Army of Northern Virginia’s Cavalry Corps in the wake of the death of the lamented cavalry chief, Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, 16 days earlier.

Eric Wittenberg is our program coordinator, an award-winning American Civil War historian and one of the country’s foremost experts on the Civil War cavalry. He is the author or co-author of 21 published books including the best-selling Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg. Eric has written more than 30 articles published in national magazines and is an avid Civil War battlefield preservationist. He is a practicing attorney and resides in Ohio with his wife, Susan.