The Greatest Civil War Battles: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

At the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5 to 7, 1864), Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee had fought to a standstill in their first encounter, failing to dislodge each other despite incurring nearly 30,000 casualties between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Despite the fierce fighting, Grant continued to push his battered but resilient army south, hoping to beat Lee’s army to the crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House, but Lee’s army beat Grant’s to Spotsylvania and began digging in, setting the scene for on and off fighting from May 8 to 21 that ultimately inflicted more casualties than the Battle of the Wilderness. In fact, with more than 32,000 casualties among the two sides, it was the deadliest battle of the Overland Campaign. 

Although the Battle of Spotsylvania technically lasted nearly two weeks, it is best remembered for the fighting that took place on May 12 at a salient in the Confederate line manned by Richard S. Ewell’s corps. Known as the Mule Shoe, a Union assault on the salient produced 24 hours of the most savage fighting conducted during the war, forever christening that point in the line as the Bloody Angle. Although Winfield Scott Hancock’s II Corps established a temporary breakthrough, the Confederates were ultimately able to repulse the Union soldiers in bloody hand-to-hand fighting.