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Spotsylvania Driving Tour, #3, Bloody Angle
Transcript
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.
Description
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.
Credit
NPS
Date Created
05/10/2022
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