Garthright House

Garthright House. . "We charged across the open field under a murdrous storm of balls and canister shot...& soon gained complet[e] possesion of all the buildings....We soon fortified as best we could the aproaches to the house by barrells and farming tools and held the position...." , June 1, 1864, diary of John F.L. Hartwell, 121st New York infantry, The Garthright House stood in the path of charging troops at two battles: Gaines’ Mill in 1862 and Cold Harbor in 1864. The house belonged to Miles Garthright, a Confederate soldier whose cavalry unit saw action around Cold Harbor early in the battle. Portions of the building might have been 100 years old by the time of the Civil War. The nearby enclosed brick cemetery dates from the middle of the 1700s, if not earlier., Union surgeons used the house as a field hospital in June 1864. Mrs. Garthright took refuge in the basement, where “with fear and trembling” she watched as blood dripped through the cracks in the floor and into the cellar. At least 97 soldiers died from their wounds here and received temporary burial in the front yard. Two years later the Cold Harbor National Cemetery opened across the road and work crews reburied all of the Union dead there.