Spotsylvania, The Inconclusive But Bloody Civil War Battle In Which Both Sides Declared Victory
Library of CongressA Confederate soldier who was killed during the Battle of Spotsylvania.
“I never expect to be fully believed,” one Union veteran remarked at the end of the Civil War, “when I tell of the horrors of Spotsylvania.”
Indeed, the Battle of Spotsylvania was one of the most violent battles of the Civil War. Lasting from May 8 to May 21, 1864, it was a weeks-long bloody grind between Union troops led by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate soldiers directed by General Robert E. Lee.
Grant sought to pursue Lee, crush his army, capture Richmond, and deal a fatal blow to the Confederacy. Lee sought to hold Grant back. But though Lee was able to defend his position with 52,000 men, half of what Grant had, the Union general crippled Lee’s army through his relentless campaign.
The worst of the fighting took place on May 12, along a Confederate salient (a bulge into enemy lines) that soldiers called the “Mule Shoe.” For 22 hours, in the pouring rain, Grant directed wave after wave of Union soldiers to attack. The fighting devolved into bloody, muddy, hand-to-hand combat in an area later dubbed the “Bloody Angle,” the site of 17,000 casualties.
“The horseshoe was a boiling, bubbling and hissing cauldron of death,” wrote a Union officer after the battle, as documented by the National Park Service. “Clubbed muskets, and bayonets were the modes of fighting for those who had used up their cartridges, and frenzy seemed to possess the yelling, demonic hordes on either side.”
Library of CongressA depiction of the Battle of Spotsylvania.
The casualties for both sides were high: 18,399 for the Union (with 2,725 killed), and 12,687 for the Confederates (including 1,515 deaths), for a total of 31,086. Lee had held Grant back, but at a great cost. Grant had not achieved the decisive victory against Lee that he needed, but he had inflicted terrible losses. And, indeed, the Confederate forces were fatally weakened at the Battle of Spotsylvania, though the war would continue for another year.
