The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, fought from May 8-21, 1864, introduced a new kind of war to the armies. Soldiers experienced fighting that not even three years of warfare had prepared them for, and civilians who lived on the landscape found themselves stuck between the warring forces.
The battlefield includes shared public roads that may move at high speeds. Drive carefully. There are a few walking trails throughout the battlefield as well as historical earthworks and trenches. Please help preserve the battlefield by not walking on earthworks and remaining on the trails.
This route and audio tour is also available via the National Park Service app (available at the Apple Store and on Google Play).
The Spotsylvania Battlefield Exhibit Shelter is located at the beginning of the park driving tour road.
After the Battle of the Wilderness, US General Ulysses S. Grant decided to keep his army on the move. This decision, and Grant’s ability to match the aggressiveness of Confederate General Robert E. Lee would prove to shape the course of the war to come.
Both armies marched furiously after leaving the Wilderness. The Confederate Army reached the crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House by a hair and blocked the US Army from moving further south. In position, both sides began setting up lines of defense and Grant considered his options for attacking Lee’s army.
Spotsylvania Driving Tour #1, Exhibit Shelter
Welcome to the Spotsylvania Battlefield Driving Tour. This 8-part tour follows the people and events that shaped the struggle between the US Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in May of 1864. Part 1 follows the armies to the crossroads of Spotsylvania, where they set up battle lines and prepared for an engagement. Neither side knew just how intense the prolonged fight here would be.
Welcome to the driving tour of the Spotsylvania battlefield. Here at the Exhibit Shelter, there are wayside paneling that describe the armies’ movements towards Spotsylvania as well as maps that put the battle into context. From the Exhibit Shelter a walking trail crosses over Brock Road and climbs the ridgeline called Laurel Hill before returning here. The stop here serves as an orientation to the battle that began on May 8 as Federal soldiers marched south from the Wilderness and ran into Confederate troops blocking the road. As both sides began to dig a system of trenches, U.S. and Confederate commanders began to formulate plans to get at one another. If you take the short walk from the exhibit shelter to the park entrance, you will see a monument dedicated to Union Gen. John Sedgwick, killed on May 9. Erected in 1887, this is one of the earliest monuments put up on what became the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.
At the end of the two-week long battle of Spotsylvania Court House, a Federal officer said that “Antietam and Gettysburg were child’s play to this slaughter.” A Confederate soldier agreed, writing to his parents, “All the men say that this has been the hardest fight, since the war [began].” What happened at Spotsylvania Court House to make hardened veterans say such sweeping statements? The battle became an inferno of violence that engulfed not just the armies, but also local civilians who suddenly found themselves amid the carnage. This tour of the Spotsylvania battlefield seeks to tell the battle’s story, and its impact on the people who lived here. After the two-day long battle of the Wilderness on May fifth and sixth, that resulted in a combined 30,000 casualties, the United States Army of the Potomac continued moving. In the past, after a major battle, the two armies had the habit of separating for a period of time to regroup and replenish supplies. But Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, overseeing the Army of the Potomac, realized to end the war quicker, they had to beat Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into submission. There would be, as Grant promised President Lincoln, “no turning back.” Grant and Meade now targeted the important crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House. Having maintained possession of the Brock Road during the battle of the Wilderness, the U.S. Army was able to easily turn south and begin marching towards Spotsylvania. If they could get to the crossroads before the Confederates, they could use the road network as a springboard towards the Confederate capital at Richmond. Throughout May seventh and eighth, the advance elements of the Federal army moved south. However, Confederate cavalry doggedly slowed the Federal approach, fighting behind nearly every bend of the winding Brock Road. From Todd’s Tavern, almost four miles from this location, all the way into Spotsylvania, the Confederate cavalry skirmished with the Federal troops and slowed down their advance. Watching the slow progress, George Meade fumed at the Federal cavalry commander, Gen. Philip Sheridan. Sheridan, who had barely any experience commanding cavalry, had come east in the spring of 1864 as Grant’s personal pick to command the cavalry corps. After his screaming match with Sheridan, Meade reported the encounter to Grant, and bristled when the general-in-chief sided with Sheridan, illustrating the tense command structure of the Army of the Potomac—an army that Meade commanded but was overshadowed by Grant’s presence. On May seventh, Confederate infantry under Gen. Richard Anderson were ordered to march to Spotsylvania to block the Federal forces. Sometimes cutting paths through the unforgiving Wilderness to make their own roads, the Confederates pressed on to get away from the fires and suffocating smoke created by the battle of the Wilderness. By the early morning hours of May 8, Anderson’s tired soldiers were closing in and could hear the fighting along the Brock Road. Anderson’s arriving soldiers took up positions at the top of the long ridgeline across the street from the present-day exhibit shelter. Both sides soon came to call that ridge Laurel Hill. For hours Union infantry, marching down the Brock Road, formed into lines of battle and advanced up Laurel Hill, only to be repelled and sent reeling back. Casualties mounted on the ridgeline, and one New Yorker wrote “it was a terrible fire and the boys fell thick and fast as the leaden hail poured in upon us.” By nightfall, the battle lines were drawn and both armies resorted to pickaxes and shovels to start digging a labyrinth of trenches and fortifications. The fighting continued May 9 at Laurel Hill and along the banks of the Po River to the west of the park today. On the morning of May 9, a sharpshooter’s bullet killed Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick—the highest-ranking United States Army officer killed during the Civil War. Realizing they could not break through at Laurel Hill, Grant and Meade started looking for other places they could strike at Lee’s entrenched forces.
Driving Directions to Upton's Road, Stop #2
Continue along Grant Drive for 0.6 miles to Tour Stop #2, Upton's Road, and park in the pull out on your right.
The trail here follows a route near the one US Colonel Emory Upton and his troops took on May 10, 1864.
Before the war, the small lanes and paths that crisscrossed the countryside were little more than mundane roads utilized by farmers. When the armies came, roads, no matter how small, became vitally important for moving troops into position. One such path is here—so unimportant before the war that it did not even have a name.
On May 10, 1864, Federal soldiers under the command of Colonel Emory Upton used the nondescript path to attack Confederate fortifications less than a mile away. From here, you may walk the half-mile roundtrip trail to the site of Upton’s attack.
Spotsylvania Driving Tour, #2, Upton's Road
Part 2 of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour follows the US assault on the Confederate defenses on May 10, 1864. Though the attacks ultimately failed, they encouraged Ulysses S. Grant to try again. This persistence became a hallmark of Grant's leadership and was a stark difference from his predecessors.
By May 10, Robert E. Lee’s Confederates were firmly dug into miles of trenches and breastworks. Soldiers cut down trees to make head-logs that sat atop their fortifications and provided more protection. By cutting down the trees the Confederates also created openings where they could see any oncoming Federal soldiers. Cannon were positioned throughout the line to support the infantry. However, though the positions seemed impregnable, they did have weaknesses. With many of the trenches dug at night, the soldiers blindly followed the contours of the landscape, trying to stay on the high ground. This created points where the lines bulged out, creating what is known as “salients”—these positions were vulnerable to attack from three directions and were susceptible to crossfire. The Army of Northern Virginia’s largest salient came to be known as the Muleshoe Salient, named for its distinct upside-down U shape, which measured nearly 1,800 yards wide and 1,300 yards deep. The Muleshoe Salient in essence connected Lee’s left, at Laurel Hill, and his right, closer to the Fredericksburg Road, and had several smaller salients that jutted out towards the Federal lines. One of those salients, defended by Brig. Gen. George Doles, came to be named for the Georgian—Doles’s Salient. It was there, Doles’s Salient, that the Federal high command turned their attention to next. If the Federals could break through the salient, they could slice Lee’s army into two. From this spot, Doles’s Salient is about half a mile to the right (or, south), through the woods. Attacking it fell to the Army of the Potomac’s Sixth Corps, now under the command of Horatio Wright, who replaced John Sedgwick. Meeting with some of his subordinate officers, Wright picked 12 regiments of Federal infantry, totaling nearly 5,000 men. Rather than attack in a standard line, however, a formation was chosen that put the 12 regiments in a thick block that could cover ground faster and get to the enemy’s line in better cohesion. Three regiments wide and four regiments deep, the column could bludgeon its way through the Confederate defenses. Colonel Emory Upton, from Batavia, New York, was chosen to command the column of 12 regiments. Not yet 25 years old, Upton had graduated from West Point and was a rising star in the United States Army. When told which regiments he would be commanding on May 10, he told a friend, “They are the best men in the army,” and added that the Confederates “cannot repulse those regiments.” Throughout the early afternoon of May 10, Federal officers scouted the area and found a dirt road that Upton’s regiments could take to get close to the enemy lines. Confederate pickets were pushed backwards, allowing the 12 Federal regiments to form in these woods largely undetected. The park trail runs parallel to the path Upton’s regiments used and can be seen by taking the one-mile-round-trip walking trail that leads to Doles’s Salient and back to this parking area. For about an hour, Federal artillery bombarded the Confederate trenches to soften up the position. Through a mix-up in communication, another Federal column, intended to support Upton, went against the Mule Shoe before Upton began his attack, and was quickly repulsed. That left Upton to go in alone. Shortly after 6:00 p.m., Upton gave the order to go forward. The 5,000 U.S. soldiers stepped off. Emerging from the tree line about 200 yards away, Upton’s men charged forward with “the most unearthly shouts and yells ever heard,” one soldier recollected. The column advanced through the musketry and cannon fire that sliced through it, knocking dozens of Federal soldiers out of line. The block of Union regiments slammed into the salient and broke through the defenses of the approximately 1,100 Georgians holding the line. Regiments began peeling to the north and south to make the breach bigger as Confederates reeled backwards. A Pennsylvanian wrote, “They were very stubborn, and the bayonets and clubbed muskets were used freely before the pit was fully in our possession.” One of the Georgians wrote, “They poured through and turning to the right & left commenced pouring a fire right down the line and also passing in our rear.” Upton’s men doggedly fought on, widening the breach. Realizing the dire situation that the fall of Doles’s Salient presented, Confederate commanders began to organize counterattacks. Robert E. Lee tried to personally lead soldiers into combat, something he had also tried to do just four days earlier at the Wilderness, but was talked out of it by staff members. As Confederate brigades converged on the salient, the lack of support for Upton’s soldiers doomed any further success. Upton’s 5,000 men had pushed aside Doles’s small brigade, but now became entangled with thousands of other Confederates who rushed forward. Running low on ammunition and having sustained heavy losses, Upton’s soldiers began to retreat. They returned to their own lines having captured some 1,000 Confederate prisoners, but at a heavy loss to their own regiments. Colonel Clark Edwards, of the 5th Maine, wrote that night “little sleep was had, for our hearts were too full of grief and sorrow for the poor fellows who had fallen.” Upton’s attack may have failed, but it alerted Federal commanders to the fact that the salient, if attacked in strength and with enough support, could be broken. For his efforts on May 10, Upton would eventually be promoted to brigadier general. Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade immediately began to plan the next attack against the Muleshoe.
Driving Directions to the Bloody Angle, Stop #3
Continue along Grant Drive for 0.3 miles to Tour Stop #3, Bloody Angle, and park in the lot to your left.
The Bloody Angle became the epicenter of hand-to-hand fighting on May 12, 1864.
Some of war’s most infamous fighting took place here over 24 hours, starting with a pre-dawn attack by nearly 20,000 Federal soldiers against the Confederate position known as the Muleshoe Salient. By the time the fighting ended here, there were almost 17,000 casualties between the two armies, and a bend in the earthworks became forever known as the Bloody Angle. The fighting here completely upended the norms of Civil War combat. Soldiers used to fighting for only short periods of time were thrown into the maelstrom for hours on end.
After the war, veterans returned to place monuments, marking their positions during the battle.
A series of walking trails go around those monuments and into the Bloody Angle. Be mindful that there are likely still soldiers buried within these trenches. Please be respectful by not walking on them.
Spotsylvania Driving Tour, #3, Bloody Angle
The fighting at the Bloody Angle was some of the most vicious and horrible that soldiers had experienced in the war. In the early hours of May 12, US forces assaulted a protrusion in the Confederate defenses known as the Muleshoe Salient. Confederates defended their line until they completed a new line. Part 3 of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour explores the events around the US assaults at the location that would become known as the Bloody Angle.
For the last seven days, the armies had been engaged in constant combat. May 11, by comparison, brought a lull in the action. Besides the opposing skirmish lines firing at each other, there were no major attacks at Spotsylvania. But that did not mean the armies were idle. “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” Grant wrote to the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, on the morning of May 11. To that end, Grant planned a new assault, building on the success of Upton’s attack from May 10. For the new offensive, Grant planned to use the entire Second Army Corps, almost 20,000 men, with plenty of support to reinforce any breakthrough. This dwarfed the 5,000 men Upton had used. Throughout May 11, the soldiers of Winfield S. Hancock’s Second Corps marched behind the lines to get into position. In the afternoon, a steady rain began to fall. The defense of the Muleshoe Salient depended on nearly 30 Confederate cannon that were positioned throughout the line, and on May 11 Robert E. Lee made a fatal decision regarding those pieces of artillery. Getting reports of Federal movement, Lee was unsure of Grant’s intentions: were the Federals retreating? Or were they marching towards the Fredericksburg Road to make an attack on the Confederate right? Trying to anticipate Grant’s next move, Lee ordered the cannon along the Muleshoe relocated to Spotsylvania Court House. The removal of the cannon left the nearly 4,200 Confederate soldiers in the Muleshoe to defend the position by themselves. Through the pitch black and falling rain, the Federals continued to get into position. Though they tried to retain secrecy, moving 20,000 soldiers inevitably made noise heard by Confederates in the Muleshoe. General Edward Johnson, commanding the Confederates at the tip of the salient, nervously asked for the return of the cannons. The Union attack began around 4:30 in the morning on May 12. Moving quietly at first, the 20,000 soldiers reached the Landrum Lane, about 300 yards from the Confederate works at the Muleshoe. Thinking they had reached the main enemy works, the Federal soldiers let out a loud cheer before their officers could keep them moving towards the salient. Realizing now what was coming towards them, the Confederates inside the salient reached for their muskets. One Confederate called out, “Look out boys! We will have blood for supper.” Like a broken dam, the Federal soldiers crashed into the Muleshoe, pouring over the top and into the Confederate defenses. In a matter of moments nearly the entirety of Edward Johnson’s Confederate division, including himself, were captured. Also captured were 22 of the 30 returning Confederate cannon, which arrived back at their defenses just in time to be swept up by the U.S. attack. A Pennsylvanian, climbing the earthworks, swung his sword over his head and called out, “The last day of the Rebellion is here.” Like two days earlier, Confederates realized the danger of losing the salient. Thousands of Confederates began to converge on this spot, attempting to seal the breach. Robert E. Lee ordered the construction of a new line, about a mile from here, that would neutralize the Muleshoe, but it would take time to build. To buy that badly needed time, Confederate brigades were thrown forward to stave off the Federal soldiers. What followed was almost 24 hours of constant combat in some of the Civil War’s most infamous fighting. With mere feet sometimes the only distance separating the two sides, both Federal and Confederate soldiers fought along the Muleshoe. The bend in the works here became forever known as the Bloody Angle. Soldiers fought with whatever they had. The driving rain made gunpowder wet, forcing soldiers to resort to bayonets, or the butts of their rifles. Others used camp hatchets like battle axes. Cannon were brought up by Federal forces and fired at devastatingly close range. In this intense fight for survival, rank did not matter; Confederate generals Abner Perrin and Junius Daniel were both killed here. “All around that salient was a seething, bubbling roaring hell of hate and murder,” Mainer John Haley wrote. “In that baleful glare men didn’t look like men.” South Carolinian Comillus McCreary recalled, “I was splashed over with brains and blood. In stooping down or squatting to load, the mud, blood and brains mingled, would reach up to my waist, and my head and face were covered or spotted with the horrid paint.” The fighting continued, unabated. Nearly twenty hours into the combat, a 22-inch wide Oak tree was cut down, sawed into a jagged stump by the bullets flying through the air. It is on display today at the Smithsonian Institute. As soldiers from both sides continued throwing themselves at each other, Lee continued overseeing the construction of the new line. The question that remained was if the Confederates could hold on long enough and survive the day.
Driving Directions to the Harrison House Site, Stop #4
Follow Grant Drive beyond the Bloody Angle (at the sharp curve near the Bloody Angle the road becomes Anderson Drive) and follow Anderson Drive for 0.4 miles to a fork in the road. Take a left at the fork to Tour Stop #4, Harrison House Site, and park in the pull out to your right.
If you take the fork to the right, it will lead you to the location of Lee's Last Line and reconstructed earthworks.
The Harrison House sat behind the Confederate line at the Muleshoe Salient.
The Harrison House, of which only the foundation remains, represents the common household transformed by the Civil War into a place of fighting and violence. On the morning of May 12, 1864, Robert E. Lee’s headquarters were situated near the front yard of the house, and from here, Confederate counter-attacks were launched towards the Bloody Angle. Out of sheer desperation, Lee himself tried to lead some of those attacks, attempting to stave off disaster and Confederate defeat.
Spotsylvania Driving Tour, #4, Harrison House Site
Part 4 of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour takes a look at the area surrounding the Harrison House. Located behind the Confederate line, this location served as Lee's headquarters as he coordinated counterattacks on May 12, 1864.
At the top of the hill sit foundation stones, all that remain of the homestead of Edgar Harrison and his wife Ann. Built by 1860, the Harrison House, called La Villa, sat amid 190 acres, where the 11 enslaved people he owned grew oats, corn, tobacco, and churned butter. Edgar, who had joined the Confederate army, was with the cavalry and fought near his home throughout the battle. Joseph Walker, one of those enslaved by Harrison, was only nine years old in the spring of 1864. Years later, Walker wrote, “My mistress, Miss Harrison, and my mother began gathering up her silver to leave.” Ushered to the rear, Walker and the others fled as the battle of Spotsylvania began in earnest, sounding to Walker “like a thunderstorm.” Walker continued: “My mother’s house was pulled down to make breast works, and the yard and garden were used as a burying ground.” Freed by the end of the war, Walker lived until 1943. The vacant Harrison House was utilized by Gen. Richard Ewell, commanding the Confederate army’s Second Corps, as his headquarters. Robert E. Lee was also camped nearby on the morning of May 12. As fighting began in earnest at the Muleshoe, both generals rode towards the front. Lee found Ewell screaming and swearing at his soldiers, and beating them with the flat of his sword. With a stern voice, Lee reproached his subordinate and said, “How can you expect to control these men when you have lost control of yourself?” The first two weeks of May 1864 had all but destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia’s upper command and the Confederates were in dire straits. James Longstreet, commanding the army’s First Corps, had been perilously wounded at the Wilderness. Richard Ewell was screaming obscenities at his soldiers and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A.P. Hill, commanding Lee’s Third Corps, was onset by a debilitating sickness that left him no choice but to turn command over to a subordinate. And unknown to Lee, at that very moment the cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart was slowly dying in Richmond as a result of wounds sustained the day before outside of the Confederate capital. Something needed to be done to save the Confederate army from utter annihilation. For the third time in six days, Lee decided to personally lead soldiers into battle. Seeing General John Gordon and his men marching to the front, Lee went to direct them forward. Gordon and his men demanded he turn back to safety before they resumed their advance. “These men behind you are Georgians, Virginians, and Carolinians,” John Gordon told Lee. “They have never failed you on any field. They will not fail you here.” With cries of “Lee to the rear!” Gordon’s men turned Lee back towards safety before they plunged forward towards the Bloody Angle. As thousands of Confederates went forward into the maelstrom by the Muleshoe, Lee turned his attention to digging a new line that would connect his two flanks. Erected behind the slope of the Harrison House, the trenches and fortifications became known as Lee’s Last Line. The stunned survivors of Edward Johnson’s division, or what was left of it, were put to work digging. They were joined by the army’s small contingent of engineers. With the rest of the army actively engaged, the bulk of the digging and entrenching was likely done by enslaved laborers, pressed into service by a Confederate law passed in January 1864 that forced even free Black men between the ages of 18-50 to assist “in the way of work upon fortifications.” Hour after hour the digging continued as the fighting roared just a mile away at the Bloody Angle. Both commanders understood the importance of the Muleshoe and either capturing it or holding on long enough for the last line to be finished. Grant, understanding why the Confederates held on so tenaciously, wrote to his wife, “To lose this battle they lose their cause.” Working on the trenches, a Confederate soldier wrote “Generals Lee and Ewell walked up and down the line all night encouraging the men to work, and telling us that ‘the fate of the army depended on having that line done by daylight,’ and I knew by the way they acted that it was a critical time.” As U.S. and Confederate soldiers continued dying a mile away into the early morning hours of May 13, the digging continued.
Driving Directions to the McCoull House Site, Stop #5
Turn left on Gordon Drive, in about 400 ft turn left on McCoull Drive, and drive 0.2 miles to the parking area for Tour Stop #5, McCoull House.
Today these stones mark the location of the McCoull House Site.
When the Civil War began, 50% of Spotsylvania County's residents were enslaved. Even before the armies came here in the spring of 1864, people here felt the war’s effects.
Two enslaved people who lived here at the McCoull House fled to Union lines in 1862, part of the steady flow of almost 10,000 enslaved from the greater Fredericksburg area who made their way to freedom in 1862. Two years later, the war came right to the front steps of the McCoull House, and fighting swirled around the yard on May 12, and six days later on May 18.
By the time the fighting ended, a passerby wrote, “Of the woods, thinned and despoiled by the storm of iron and lead, only a ghostly grove of dead trunks and dreary limbs remained.”
Spotsylvania Driving Tour, #5, McCoull House Site
Fighting at Spotsylvania enveloped the McCoull House. Part 5 of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour explores the aftermath of the struggle at the Bloody Angle. With Confederate forces behind a new line, the question remained for Grant: what happens next?
The stone slabs in front of you are all that remain of the home of Neil McCoull, who owned 600 acres and enslaved six people here. His house, built in 1846, stood here until it burned down in 1920. McCoull, too old to serve in the army, was nonetheless an ardent supporter of the Confederacy. During the battle, members of the McCoull family hid in the basement while the rest of the house served as headquarters for Confederate general Edward Johnson, until his capture on May 12. As dawn slowly began to creep across the horizon on May 13, 1864, the surviving Confederate forces were pulled out of the Bloody Angle and ordered back to Lee’s Last Line, which had been completed over the course of the night. Mississippian David Holt, who had fought through most of the battle’s worst carnage, provided a visceral testimony to the Bloody Angle’s aftermath. “We halted in a pasture and broke ranks,” he wrote. “Then came the reaction. All moved by the same impulse, we sat down on the wet ground and wept. Not silently, but vociferously and long. . . . We were covered with bloody mud from head to foot. Soon we got rations of corndodger and fried bacon, but not a man could eat.”
Back at the Bloody Angle, the U.S. forces realized their Confederate foe had retreated. Weary and cautiously, the Union soldiers peered over the trenches that had been the dividing line for the last 24 hours. Realizing the salient was theirs, the Union soldiers slowly began to creep forward. They found the horrors of the Bloody Angle fully illuminated by the day’s new lights. One Massachusetts officer wrote, “the dead were piled in heaps upon heaps and the wounded men were intermixed with them, held fast by their dead companions who fell upon them continually adding to the ghastly pile.” Both armies, as if shocked by the horror that had just unfolded, remained in their positions throughout May 13. Besides some light skirmishing, there were no major attacks. Grant wrote to his wife on May 13, “The world has never seen so bloody or so protracted a battle as the one being fought and I hope never will again.”
The fighting resumed on May 14. Looking to the south, Grant and Meade tried to catch Lee off guard by shifting troops to the Confederates’ right, but the Federals were rebuffed. Constant rain stalled both armies and frustrated Grant’s attempts at getting around Lee. As Lee continued to slide soldiers over to face the Federal movements, Grant figured Lee’s center was now weak and open to attack. He determined to attack Lee’s Last Line by attacking from the Bloody Angle and covering this ground, advancing towards the Harrison House in the distance. On May 17, the tired Union soldiers tramped once again into position. By the morning of May 18, nearly 12,000 Federal soldiers from three corps had arranged themselves to attack Lee’s position. It required the Federals to assemble near the Bloody Angle, where, after almost a week since the fighting on May 12, many of the dead remained unburied. Some Union soldiers stuffed leaves into their noses to protect themselves from the overwhelming stench. It was not enough, for some, though. “The stench which arose from them was so sickening and terrible that many of the men and officers became deathly sick from it,” one U.S. soldier wrote. Federal cannon opened fire on the distant Confederate trenches before the U.S. infantry swept forward. This time, though, there would be no breach in Lee’s lines or desperate hand-to-hand combat. Studded with almost 30 cannon, the Confederate trenches were nearly impregnable. The artillery blasted away at the Federal lines, cutting great gaps away as the blue-coated soldiers crossed this ground trying to get to the Harrison House and beyond. One Confederate artillerist recollected that, “Vainly do they endeavor to press forward—again and again we break them, and their officers uselessly dash up and down their lines, endeavoring to hurl them upon our works. . .. They are but food for our gunpowder.” Before the Federal infantry even got within musket range, the attack was turned back, and the survivors retreated. With the failure of the attack on May 18, Grant and Meade reached the conclusion that they had done everything they could do at Spotsylvania. It had been ten days since the battle began, and they were no closer to breaking through Lee’s lines than they had been on May 8. Similarly to how Grant outflanked Lee to the south following the battle of the Wilderness, Grant once more began to look for ways to get around Lee.
Driving Directions to East Face of Salient, Stop #6
Drive back down McCoull Drive and turn left onto Gordon Drive. In 0.6 miles park in the pull out for Tour Stop #6, East Face of Salient.
A path connects the eastern face of the Muleshoe Salient with the Bloody Angle.
The tactics and strategy of warfare had changed by 1864. Earlier in the war, battles were marked by engagements maneuvering around open fields; by the time they reached Spotsylvania, armies were digging more and more elaborate trenches. The East Face of the Muleshoe Salient present some of the best-preserved trenches anywhere on the battlefield and the opportunity to examine the changing methods of warfare.
Spotsylvania Driving Tour, #6, East Face of Salient
Warfare evolved over the course of the Civil War. The fighting at Spotsylvania Court House was more prolonged than both armies were accustomed to. Both sides were entrenching more, and defending their entrenchments. Part 6 of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour discusses the changing nature of warfare in the Civil War and its impact on the common soldier.
The trenches here mark the East Face of the Muleshoe Salient, where the Confederate lines swerved to the east and reconnected with other fortifications further to the south. On May 12, they were targeted by Federal soldiers under the command of Gen. Winfield S. Hancock. Much of the fighting that occurred here has been discussed at Stop 3, the Bloody Angle. Throughout the day, Union and Confederate brigades thrown towards the Muleshoe spilled over the Bloody Angle and into this section of works. Today, the trenches along the East Face represent some of the best-preserved fortifications anywhere on the Spotsylvania battlefield. Though they look little more than just mounds and holes in the ground today, they tell a complex story of the evolution of warfare. The days of two opposing armies standing in open fields and blasting away at one another were largely over, replaced by near constant digging and fortifying. Theodore Lyman, one of George Meade’s staff officers, left behind one of the best written descriptions of the creation of these trenches. Impressed by the Confederates’ quick work, he wrote, “It is a rule that, when the Rebels halt, the first day gives them a good rifle-pit; the second, a regular infantry parapet with artillery in position; and the third a parapet with an abattis in front and entrenched batteries behind. Sometimes they put this three days’ work into the first twenty-four hours. . . You would be amazed to see how this country is intersected with field-works, extending for miles and miles in different directions.” Confederate general James Walker echoed the sentiments when he wrote, “As soon as night put an end to the combat, axes, picks and shovels were sent for, and along the whole line through the night the men worked like beavers, and the crash of falling trees, the ring of axes, and the sound of the spade and shovel were heard.” The trench warfare here brought harbingers of the future; stagnant conflict for years in the First World War immediately come to mind. Though slow, methodical, and at a high loss of life, Federal commanders realized that trench warfare was just as taxing on the Confederates’ ability to wage war. By keeping pressure on the Confederate forces, Grant took away Robert E. Lee’s initiative and forced Lee into defensive positions. The usually aggressive Lee, who had utilized counterattacks to devastating effect throughout the war, could now only react to Grant’s movements. While the trenches here at the Muleshoe fell to Federal attacks on May 12, the Confederate works at the next stop repelled every attack thrown at it during the entire battle of Spotsylvania.
Driving Directions to Heth's Salient, Stop #7
Continue along the park road for 0.6 miles to Tour Stop #7, Heth's Salient, and park in the pull out to your right.
Confederates held the earthworks here throughout the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.
The importance of earthworks and trenches was evident here at Heth’s Salient. Despite being attacked numerous times throughout the battle, the Confederate defenses here never buckled. Throughout the battle the earthworks protected the Army of Northern Virginia’s right near the Fredericksburg Road. Federal soldiers attacking this position included the 17th Michigan, whose monument, dedicated in 1997, is located here.
The Confederate trenches are still visible about a quarter mile from this stop, but there are no established trails and reaching them requires walking through thick foliage.
Spotsylvania Driving Tour #7, Heth's Salient
The US assault on the Muleshoe Salient on May 12, 1864 was supported by US attacks on Heth's Salient. These Confederate defenses never gave way. Part 7 of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour explores these attacks and their impact on the battle.
The Confederate trenches off to the right and into the woods were defended by a division of soldiers commanded by Gen. Henry Heth. From here, they protected the Confederate right flank and guarded the approaches to Spotsylvania along the Fredericksburg Road. Though Heth’s line was also a salient, it had plenty of artillery to protect the position’s vulnerabilities. Opposing Heth on the morning of May 12 was Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s 9th Army Corps. Burnside, who had commanded the U.S. Army at Fredericksburg, was in a unique position. After serving well in Ohio and Tennessee, Burnside returned to Virginia at the head of the 9th Corps, but he technically outranked the army’s commander, George Meade. Rather than deal with the bureaucratic confusion of figuring how Burnside fit into the army’s command structure, Grant kept the 9th Corps separate from the rest of the Army of the Potomac. For the time being, Burnside reported directly to Grant. This though, led to unintended consequences of breakdowns in communication and coordination. The unwieldy setup first proved its setbacks at the Wilderness, when the 9th Corps floundered through the woods and were repulsed. Here at Spotsylvania, Burnside’s orders were to attack in conjunction with the assaults against the Muleshoe Salient, but there was little connecting his lines with Winfield Hancock’s to his right. Nonetheless, around 4:30 a.m. on May 12, Burnside sent his men forward to Heth’s Salient. The Union soldiers soon ran into Confederate opposition. “Our well-directed fire told on their ranks,” one of Heth’s soldiers wrote. He went on, “Though the two assaults had lasted hardly an hour. . . the Federal dead and wounded lay as thick on the ground as if a battle had raged for a day.” One of the attacking regiments in Burnside’s corps was the 17th Michigan, whose monument sits in front of you. Going into action, the 17th Michigan quickly hit the Confederate lines. “The young fresh leaves of the forest made it impossible for us to see very far in any direction,” one Michigander wrote. Confederate musketry and artillery crashed into the regiment, knocking dozens down. Before the regiment could recover, a Confederate counterattack of North Carolinians surged into the Michiganders, making dozens more prisoners of war, and even capturing the 17th Michigan’s flag. In its brief attack, the 17th Michigan suffered 189 casualties of 225 men going into action—a loss of 84%. Fighting see-sawed back and forth near Heth’s Salient over the course of May 12, but ultimately no Federals were able to break through. Heth’s Confederates held firm, and six days later again repelled the Union attacks on May 18. Grant and Meade had been stopped in their last attacks at Spotsylvania. Realizing they would not be able to break through, both commanders looked for ways to get their army around Lee’s right once more. To do so, they would need the Fredericksburg Road.
Driving Directions to the Fredericksburg Road, Stop #8
Continue along the park road (now Burnside Drive) for 0.7 miles to Tour Stop #8, Fredericksburg Road, and park in the pull out to your right.
At the end of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, both sides sought control of the Fredericksburg Road.
As the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House reached its conclusion, both sides looked to control the Fredericksburg Road. Whichever side possessed the road had the ability to help or hinder the arrival of reinforcements and supplies. The battle’s last fighting took place to determine which army owned the Fredericksburg Road. The United States Army of the Potomac maintained control of the valuable route. With the battle’s end on May 21, the armies marched away, leaving behind the catastrophic debris of the last thirteen days.
The memory of the battle and how it was commemorated took center stage in the latter years of the 1800s as veterans returned to put up monuments and preserve land where they had fought years before.
After nearly two weeks of fighting, US General Ulysses S. Grant decided to again move around Lee's forces and force the Confederates to retreat south. What were the consequences of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House? What happened to the land once the armies left? The last part of the Spotsylvania Driving Tour discusses the end and aftermath of the battle.
In front of you runs the Courthouse Road, known during the Civil War as the Fredericksburg Road. The first courthouse in Spotsylvania was constructed in 1778 and in the near century between then and the breaking out of the Civil War, the road became a major route for commerce and politics between Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania. What had been important for farmers carrying their goods to market now became vital to generals planning how to move tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of cannon. Whomever controlled the road, controlled how the rest of the campaign would unfold. Ulysses S. Grant, knowing he had done what could be done at Spotsylvania, decided it was time to leave after the May 18 attacks. “I immediately gave orders for a movement by the left flank, on towards Richmond,” Grant wrote in his memoirs. Federal soldiers began the long march in the rain and mud to swing around and get into position. The Fredericksburg Road played a monumentally important role in this march; not just as a causeway for soldiers, but as a re-supply route for provisions coming down from Fredericksburg. Robert E. Lee recognized this. If he could attack and sever the road, he could cut Grant off from supplies, reinforcements, and possibly even leave the Army of the Potomac stranded with no where to go. He ordered assaults to go forward and strike the road. The last fighting to occur at Spotsylvania took place in the evening hours of May 19 when those attacks hit about a mile and a half to your left on ground outside of the park today. Centered around the home of Clement Harris, the fighting left thousands more dead or wounded before the combat finally ceased. As the gun smoke cleared, the Fredericksburg Road remained in Federal hands; Lee’s attempt at cutting the road had failed. Grant’s men began to leave Spotsylvania the next day. They marched south, towards the North Anna River. Lee’s army had no choice but to follow, staying between the Federals and the city of Richmond. More fighting lay in the immediate future along the banks of the North Anna River and at an intersection of roads called Cold Harbor. The armies left behind the debris and carnage of warfare. Over the 13-day battle of Spotsylvania Court House, nearly 32,000 U.S. and Confederate soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured. Close to 17,000—over half of the entire battle’s casualties—were lost on May 12 alone during the fighting around the Bloody Angle. Combining the losses at the Wilderness, both armies lost 61,000 people in sixteen days. Wounded soldiers were evacuated; Confederates towards Richmond, Federals to Fredericksburg before they could be sent further north. A Union surgeon recalled “The road, if road it may be called, was wretched indeed, the horses often sinking in mud. … through this ambulances and wagons were floundering along, carrying the wounded to Fredericksburg.” A Fredericksburg civilian, watching in horror as the steady train of wagons kept coming into the town, wrote, “The road near the fair grounds seems to be literally covered.” The dead were left where they lay. Some had been hastily buried, but the constant rain washed much of the dirt and mud away, leaving the corpses exposed. A year later, Federal soldiers returned to the area on their way towards Washington at the end of the war. They came across the ghastly sites still uncovered. “The ground is covered with the remains of our soldiers who had never been buried,” one soldier wrote in May 1865. “I saw hundreds of skeletons lying as they fell with clothes and accoutrements on.” In time, many of the dead were moved to cemeteries. Federal dead were transported to the National Cemetery in Fredericksburg; Confederate dead were brought to several local cemeteries, including one nearby in Spotsylvania. Others were not moved at all. Having died in the trenches of the Bloody Angle, many soldiers there were buried by simply pushing the trenches over the top of them. “These unfortunate victims had unwittingly dug their own graves,” one soldier wrote. They are likely still there, nearly 160 years later. Like so many other times during the war, it fell to the civilians to pick up the pieces. Katherine Couse, who lived near where the battle started at Laurel Hill, wrote, “Dilapidation and decay mark the course of every thing. . . there is no peace in living in this God forsaken country.” For some civilians, the battle destroyed everything they had. Sarah Spindle and her family lived near Laurel Hill when artillery shells set their home afire on May 8. Fleeing the flames, they never returned. And so, the armies left Spotsylvania behind. Fighting continued for another 11 months before finally ending at Appomattox Court House. Some veterans came back after the war, to place monuments and remember fallen comrades. Others preserved land and lobbied for the establishment of a park, which was accomplished with the creation of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park in 1927. Still others, though, could bear no further thought to Spotsylvania or its horrors. Pennsylvanian Maurus Oestreich, writing in his diary after the fighting at the Bloody Angle, scribbled, “I have seen so much that I can’t nor will put it in this book. I will seal this in my memory by myself.”
