Well, it's not a question of winning or surrendering. It's a question of how we trust our sources. What did Catton, Foote, McPherson, Trudeau, Eicher, and the NPS use as their sources? For Trudeau, since he didn't use footnotes it's difficult.
"There was never an accurate accounting of Union losses for this day. A surgeon in Hancock's corps guessed the casualties to be 'not much less than 5,000.' The Confederate First Corps artillery chief, E. P. Alexander, later estimated the number to be seventy-three hundred, while Provost Marshal Marsena Patrick of the Army of the Potomac was told by General Meade that heir losses exceeded eight thousand. Drawing upon hospital records, Meade's chief of staff, Andrew Humphreys, put the June 3 totals at 4,517 wounded and 'at least 1,100' killed." [Noah Andre Trudeau,
Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864, p. 298] The numbers you gave in post #59 were for the entire Cold Harbor actions, from June 1-June 12, not just the June 3 attack. Those tables where you got that were compiled by Bryce Suderow using Dyer's
Compendium of the War of the Rebellion and tables in the OR. Again, Rhea used the handwritten casualty returns in the National Archives. As pointed out before, Trudeau doesn't support the 7,000 in a half hour claim.
The NPS figures you quote in #59 also appear to be the entire Cold Harbor campaign from June 1-June 12.
Eicher claims 7,000 in under an hour, but he gives no source for this claim. Without a source it's merely an unsubstantiated opinion.
Foote can easily be discounted because he's neither a historian nor a scholar. What source did he use? He doesn't tell you. That's another mere unsubstantiated opinion.
What exactly does McPherson day?
What exactly does Catton say?
@Eric Calistri quotes from both and neither of them make a 7,000 in half an hour claim.
Is there a URL for the NPS?
I found the Civil War Trust site you referenced:
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/cold-harbor
It has no source and is an unsigned article so we don't know who wrote it and what their qualifications are.
Here's what the Civil War Trust says about Gordon Rhea:
"
Gordon C. Rhea is considered a foremost expert on the Overland Campaign. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the battles of Cold Harbor, North Anna, Spotsylvania Court House and the Wilderness, as well as a respected attorney in Charleston, S.C."
https://www.civilwar.org/contributors/gordon-c-rhea
Their go-to source for their Cold Harbor video is Gordon Rhea.
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/videos/cold-harbor-gordon-rhea
It seems the most updated information for the Civil War Trust takes what Gordon Rhea says as correct, whereas that other page appears to need updating.
Again, as I said, it's not a question of winning or surrendering, but using this as a discussion of how we can interrogate our sources to see what they are telling us and whether or not what they're telling us is reliable.
If there's anything to make these other sources more reliable than Rhea, I'm all ears.