Warren fired his artillery at the enemy; but lost so much time in making ready that the enemy got by, and at three o'clock he reported the enemy was strongly intrenched in his front, and besides his lines were so long that he had no mass of troops to move with.

He seemed to have forgotten that lines in rear of an army hold themselves while their defenders are fighting in their front.

Wright reconnoitred some distance to his front: but the enemy finding Old Cold Harbor already taken had halted and fortified some distance west.
By six o'clock in the afternoon Wright and Smith were ready to make an assault.

In front of both the ground was clear for several hundred yards and then became wooded.

Both charged across this open space and into the wood, capturing and holding the first line of rifle-pits of the enemy, and also capturing seven or eight hundred prisoners.
While this was going on, the enemy charged Warren three separate times with vigor, but were repulsed each time with loss.