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Each episode of Civil War Combat: America's Bloodiest Battles focuses on a single engagement from America's bloodiest war. To bring the human side of the drama to life, each episode, while offering larger strategic commentary, focuses sharply on a single unit that engaged in fighting. Through careful re-enactments, viewers are given a sense of what it was like on the ground for those who fought and died in some of America's most brutal battles. This episode is about the Battle of Cold Harbor, one of the first major engagements of the war and -- with its series of trenches -- a bloody foretaste of the battles to come. The 2nd Connecticut under Colonel Elisha Kellogg and the 8th New York under Colonel Peter A. Porter were just two of the many Union regiments that would get their first taste of battle at Cold Harbor. This episode conveys the shock and horror of their baptism by fire, bringing their tragic story vividly to life.