During the Battle of Spotsylvania—May 8–12, 1864—Union General
Winfield S. Hancock seized Confederate entrenchments known as
the Mule Shoe Salient. The Confederates fought back, however, and
an encounter on the northwest face of the salient on May 12 created
the “Bloody Angle.” Here, in the most brutal, close-quarter fighting,
blood tinged red the soil of Virginia as thousands of soldiers died.
In the Trenches at
Spotsylvania
EYEWITNESS May 12, 1864
“Infantrymen, from opposite sides of the works, climbed up
and fired into the faces of their opponents; they grappled one
another and attempted to drag each other across the breastworks;
bayonet thrusts were made through crevices; the continuous
musketry fire cut off large trees standing in the line of the works,
the dead and the dying had to be flung to the rear to give room for
the living, fighting ones, in the trenches and, to add to the horrors
of combat, a cold, heavy rain set in and partly filled the trench,
where the combatants stood, until they seemed to fairly run with
blood ... the writer, who was on this field of awful combats, does
not believe that human ear ever listened to a more steady and
continuous roar of musketry and artillery than that which rose
from the field of fierce contention, from the dawning to the day
until late in the afternoon.
”
“No tongue can describe the horrors of the scene around me.
Dead and dying men by scores and hundreds lie piled upon each
other in promiscuous disorder. God has seen fit so far to spare
me, for which I truly feel thankful. I cannot even attempt to give
you a slight idea of this field of death. All around you lie the
unmistakable evidences that death is doing its most frightful
work. Do not worry about me. We have driven the enemy at every
point, but Oh! at what a sacrifice of life ... I am more dead than
alive. We have no regiment. It is so scattered that hardly a dozen
can be got together. So fearful has been our loss, that it now seems
we have no place here: but we shall all find enough to do ... the
rebels fight like devils! We have to fairly club them out of their
rifle pits. We have taken thousands of prisoners and killed an
army; still they fight as hard as ever.
”
JEDEDIAH HOTCHKISS, CONFEDERATE TOPOGRAPHER, ON THE “BLOODY ANGLE,” FROM
CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY, 1899
DANIEL HOLT, ASSISTANT SURGEON WITH THE 121 NEW YORK VOLUNTEER
INFANTRY, IN A LETTER TO HIS WIFE, FROM A SURGEON’S CIVIL WAR, 1994
Fleeting victory
General Hancock (mounted) led the overwhelming
attack on the Mule Shoe Salient on the Confederate line.
But his unexpected success led to disorganization among
his forces, and days of bitter fighting followed.