Spotsylvania Court House, 8–21 May 1864

The battle, stage by stage

1. 8 May 1864, about 8 AM - noon

   The race to Laurel Hill

   After two days in the Wilderness, Grant does not retreat: on the night of 7-8 May the Army of the Potomac marches south down the Brock Road toward Spotsylvania Court House, a crossroads village between Lee and Richmond. Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry slows Warren's V Corps all night with felled trees and barricades. Lee's First Corps, now under Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson, wins the race: after a sleepless march its leading brigades, Henagan's South Carolinians and Humphreys's Mississippians, reach a shallow ridge below the Spindle farm clearing, called Laurel Hill by the Federals, just as Stuart's troopers are giving way, by one account with the Federals less than 100 yards off. Warren, who had reported at 8 AM that the opposition 'amounts to nothing as yet,' sends Robinson's and then Griffin's divisions across the open field. The Maryland Brigade fights hand to hand at a barricade of fence rails and furniture and loses 189 men; by noon Warren has given up and entrenched on the north edge of the clearing.

2. 8 May evening - 9 May

   The lines form; Sedgwick is killed

   Sedgwick's VI Corps comes up on Warren's left, and a joint evening attack east of the Brock Road is thrown back, in part by Battle's Alabamians. Ewell's corps arrives and extends Anderson's line to the right; to hold a stretch of high ground, his men build a large salient that bulges about a mile north, soon called the Mule Shoe, with Johnson's division at its tip. Lee reportedly called it 'a wretched line.' Hill's corps, under Early while Hill is ill, comes in on the right to cover the village and the Fredericksburg Road, where Burnside's IX Corps approaches from the northeast. On the morning of 9 May Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, placing guns near the Brock Road, chides men ducking sharpshooter fire that the enemy 'couldn't hit an elephant at this distance' and is shot dead moments later, the highest-ranking Union officer killed in the war. Horatio Wright takes the VI Corps. Hancock's II Corps crosses the Po to try Lee's left.

3. 10 May, about 4 - 7:30 PM

   Upton's attack

   Grant orders a general assault. Hancock pulls Barlow back across the Po under attack by Heth; Warren's and Hancock's men charge Laurel Hill again in the late afternoon and fail. At about 6:10 PM Col. Emory Upton, 24, leads twelve hand-picked VI Corps regiments, about 5,000 men in four lines of three, from the Shelton house along a woods road to within 200 yards of the Mule Shoe's west face. Ordered not to stop and fire, they cross the open ground and overrun Doles's Georgia brigade, take roughly 900-1,200 prisoners (accounts differ) and four guns, and push toward the McCoull house. Mott's division, meant to support them, had attacked toward the tip alone at about 5 PM and been broken by artillery. Ewell rallies the defenders ('Don't run, boys'), and Daniel's, Battle's, Steuart's, Johnston's and Evans's men close in. Upton withdraws after dark; Grant makes him a brigadier general and decides to try the same idea with a whole corps.

4. 12 May, about 4:30 - 7 AM

   Hancock overruns the Mule Shoe

   On 11 May Lee, believing Grant is about to move away, pulls the guns out of the salient; Johnson asks for them back, but the order reaches the gunners only at 3:30 AM. Hancock's II Corps, about 20,000 men, forms at the Brown house with Barlow's division on the left and Birney's on the right, Mott and Gibbon behind, and at about 4:30-4:35 AM, after rain and in fog, rushes the tip of the Mule Shoe. The Federals pour over the works at the East Angle, capture most of Johnson's division (the Stonewall Brigade and Witcher's Virginians are nearly destroyed), Johnson himself and Brig. Gen. George Steuart, and about 20 guns, many just arriving; prisoner counts range from about 3,000 to 4,000. Crowded and disorganized, they press south toward the McCoull house. Gordon counterattacks from between the McCoull and Harrison houses and retakes much of the east face; Lee rides forward but his men refuse to advance until he goes to the rear. Ramseur drives back along the west face; Lane bends his line back on the east face. Wright's VI Corps comes in on Hancock's right at about 6 AM; Burnside attacks the east face.

5. 12 May, about 9 AM - 13 May, 3 AM

   The Bloody Angle

   By mid-morning the Confederates hold all but a few hundred yards of the salient, and the fighting settles on a bend in the west face, the 'Bloody Angle.' Harris's Mississippians and McGowan's South Carolinians, with Ramseur's and Perrin's men (Perrin is killed, Daniel mortally wounded), hold the inside of the log works; Wright's VI Corps (Neill, Russell with Upton, the New Jersey brigade) and Hancock's men fight from the outside, often with only the parapet between them, in rain for about 20-22 hours (the figure differs by source). A 22-inch oak behind the works is cut down by bullets. Warren's attacks on Laurel Hill fail and part of his corps is sent to the salient; about 2 PM Burnside's IX Corps collides in the woods near Heth's Salient with Lane's and Weisiger's brigades, sent out to strike its flank, and after a half-hour melee the Confederates return with about 800 prisoners. Behind the fight Lee's men dig a new line across the base of the Mule Shoe, just south of the Harrison house, and at about 2-3 AM on 13 May the survivors withdraw to it. Up to 17,000 men are reported killed, wounded or captured on 12 May.

6. 13 - 18 May

   Lee's last line

   For several days rain and mud slow everything; Grant abandons Laurel Hill on 13 May and shifts the V and VI Corps around to the east of the Fredericksburg Road, and Lee shifts troops to match (positions after the shift are approximate). On 18 May Grant tries the Mule Shoe again: Hancock's II Corps and Wright's VI Corps, formed by about 4 AM by Rhea's account, advance through the old salient, past the unburied dead, against Ewell's new line at the base. At about 8 AM Ewell's massed guns, about 29 or 30, open on them, and the attack is called off within about two hours, at a cost of about 1,200-2,000 men (accounts differ). Burnside's IX Corps attacks on the left and is also repulsed.

7. 19 May, about 4 - 9 PM

   Harris Farm

   Lee sends Ewell, with what remains of Rodes's and Gordon's divisions (about 6,000 men), to find the Union right flank. Marching by the Brock Road past the Spindle field and then northeast by the Gordon Road, crossing the Ni River near the Armstrong house (American Battlefield Trust), Ramseur's brigade leading, Ewell reaches the Fredericksburg Road, Grant's supply line, at the Harris (Bloomsbury) and Alsop farms in the late afternoon. In his way stand the 'heavies' of Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler's division, heavy artillery regiments just arrived from the Washington forts and fighting as infantry for the first time. They hold, at a high price: the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery loses about 390-398 of some 1,617 men and the 1st Maine about 481. Birney's division and other troops come up, and after dark Ewell withdraws, many of his men lost in the woods and captured. Ewell lost about 900; Union losses are given as about 1,500.

8. 20 - 21 May

   The armies move south

   Grant breaks off the battle. On the night of 20-21 May Hancock's II Corps marches southeast toward Guinea Station and Milford Station, hoping to tempt Lee into the open; the rest of the army follows on 21 May. Lee, keeping between Grant and Richmond, withdraws south along the Telegraph Road toward the North Anna River, where the armies meet again on 23-26 May. In two weeks at Spotsylvania the Union lost about 18,000 men and the Confederates about 10,000-12,700 (estimates differ; Confederate returns are incomplete). The battle was tactically inconclusive, but Grant kept moving south. Routes on this map are schematic.