The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

The fighting 191

wounded men of both sides burned
to death.

For two weeks, Lee's Confederates stubbornly
resisted the Federal army under Grant and Meade in
the woods and fields around Spotsylvania Court
House. After Confederates won the race for the key
intersection on 8 May, both armies entrenched on a
steadily widening front. On 10 May, a Federal assault
broke into the Doles' salient and two days later about
25,000 Northern troops crushed the nose of the
Mule Shoe. Lee hurriedly constructed a new final line
across the base of the Mule Shoe, and easily repulsed
an attack against the position on 18 May. The next
day, a brisk fight at the Harris Farm, northeast of the
main battlefield, ended major action at Spotsylvania.
On the 21 st, Grant moved southeast in a new
attempt to interpose between Lee and Richmond.

The Battle of Spotsylvania

Court House

After two days of intense combat in the

Wilderness, Grant had lost about

18,000 men, Lee perhaps 8,000 (Confederate

casualties for the last year of the war are

difficult to ascertain with any precision).

Wilderness was the only major battle in the

Virginia Theater in which an army had both

of its flanks shattered. Grant had vivid,

immediate proof that fighting Lee would be

nothing at all like toying with Generals

Bragg and Johnston and Pemberton in the

west. Nothing daunted, the Federal

Commander-in-Chief calmly determined

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, 8-21 May 1864