Grant ordered a massive frontal assault on entrenched Confederate positions. In the main attack on June 3rd, Union forces suffered 7,000 casualties in under an hour. Grant later called it the only assault he regretted ordering.
Demonstrated the power of defensive entrenchments. Grant's casualties alarmed the North and nearly cost Lincoln the 1864 election, but Grant pivoted to Petersburg.
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The only major fleet engagement of the war, fought off the coast of Denmark. Germany's High Seas Fleet inflicted greater losses on the Royal Navy but failed to break the British blockade. The German fleet retreated to port and never challenged Britain's naval supremacy again. Winston Churchill said Jellicoe was the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon.
Despite German tactical success (more British ships sunk), Britain retained strategic control of the North Sea. Germany's surface fleet was bottled up for the rest of the war, forcing a shift to unrestricted submarine warfare — which would eventually bring the United States into the conflict.
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