SECOND COLD HARBOK.

By BRIGADIER-GENERAL THOMAS L. CLINGMAN.

About 2 o’clock in the morning of 31 May, 1864, while lying
in the trenches at Bermuda Hundreds, I received an order to
move to join General Lee’s army, directing, however, one
regiment of my brigade to hold temporarily the line I was
leaving. I at once moved to the railroad station with the
Eighth, Thirty-first and Fifty-first Regiments, North Caro-
lina Troops, the Sixty-first being left in position. A little
after daylight, at the railroad station, the brigade of Hoke’s
Division which was to have moved first, not being there, I
was ordered to take the lead. I arrived in Richmond
soon after sunrise; on calling to see General Bragg, was
directed by him to take the railroad to Atlee’s Station, and
report to General Lee—then having his headquarters there.
‘Two miles short of that place I met Colonel Crawley, Gen-
eral Lee’s Quartermaster, who delivered to me an autograph
letter from General Lee, directing me to proceed by Mechan-
jesville and Gaines’ Mill to Old Cold Harbor, and there sup-
port Major-General Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry, and also direct-
ing me to communicate this order to any other portion of
Major-General Hoke’s Division. After I had passed two or
more miles beyond Mechanicsville, I received an order from
Major-General Hoke directing me to await further orders at
that place. After remaining there about three hours, I re-
ceived a second order from General Hoke to move on to Cold
Harbor. On arriving there, I found General Hoke, who
directed me to take a position on the left of that occupied by
the main body of the cavalry. The Thirty-first Regiment,
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Knight, was placed on.my
right; the Eighth, under Lieutenant-Colonel Murchison, in
the center, and the Fifty-first under Colonel McKethan, on
the left. Soon after, Major-General Hoke ordered that the