The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

196 The American Civil War

For hours the combatants struggled at hand-to-hand

range, separated only by fortifications made of

earth and wood. (Public domain)

be captured without firing a round. When
the Southern infantry leveled muskets and
pulled triggers, the commander of the
famous old 'Stonewall Brigade' expected the
results he had seen many times before:
volleys that knocked down the enemy in
windrows and halted the assailants'
momentum. But 'instead of the leaping line
of fire and the sharp crack of the muskets,'
General James A. Walker wrote in dismay,
'came the pop! pop! pop! of exploding caps
as the hammer fell upon them. Their powder
was damp!' The military rubric, 'Keep your
powder dry,' belonged to earlier wars fought
with flintlock muskets. This affair on 12 May
1864 was the only major instance in which
damp powder affected tactical events during
the Civil War.

The Federal tide swept over the strong
works at the nose of the Mule Shoe and
roared on southward for several hundred
yards. Then the chaos and disorientation,
often as incumbent upon military success as
upon military failure, dissolved the

momentum. Desperate Confederates, some

led by General Lee in person (as on 6 May

and 10 May), knit together new lines across

the Mule Shoe and up its sides. By dint of

intense, costly fighting they pushed

Hancock's Federals back to the outer edge of

the northern tip of the works. By then both

sides had exhausted their initiative and the

swirling fighting dissolved into a deadly,

bloody, close encounter across the

entrenchments. For 20 hours the contending

forces occupied either side of a gentle bend

in the works that stretched for about 160yds

(145m), making it forever famous as 'the

Bloody Angle' - a nom de guerre christened

with the blood of hundreds of soldiers.

The Bloody Angle was made possible by

the tall, thick earthworks, new to the war in

this campaign. No one could have fought for

more than a few minutes over the kind of

primitive trenches in use only a few months

before. The nose of the Mule Shoe featured

embattlements made of tree trunks laid

lengthwise, sometimes two parallel rows

with dirt between. Dirt piled over the bulk of

the fortification made it impenetrable by

either bullets or shells. The ditch behind the

works was deep enough to require a firing