The fighting 197step for defenders to see to fire, through a
space between the main wall and a head log
perched above it.
About 2,000 men from South Carolina
and Mississippi clung to the south face of
the works. Far more Federals from the VI and
II Corps threatened the Bloody Angle from
the north, but numbers mattered little in
that narrow front. Most Union troops went
to ground behind the lip of a draw about
40yds (37m) north of the works; others lay
directly behind the north edge of the
contested line. Brave men of both sides
leaped atop the works to fire a round then
drop back, if they survived. Others threw
bayoneted rifles across like harpoons.
A steady rain added misery to terror. The
trenches filled with water 'as bloody as if it
flowed from an abattoir.'
A Confederate called the scene 'a perfect
picture of gloom, destruction and death - a
very Golgotha of horrors.' A Federal general
who visited the scene described the results of
a fire so intense and long-continued 'that the
brush and logs were cut to pieces and
whipped into basket-stuff... men's flesh was
torn from the bones and the bones shattered.'
Toward midnight of 12-13 May, an oak tree
22 inches (56cm) thick fell. It had been hit
not by a cannonball, but by countless
thousands of bullets, which gradually nibbled
their way through its dense bole.
Just before dawn on 13 May, the
Confederate survivors finally received orders
to abandon the Bloody Angle and fall back to
a new line drawn across the base of the Mule
Shoe - where Lee's position probably should
have been formed from the outset. A
Northerner who visited the newly won
position at the nose of the salient left a
graphic description of the place's horrors:
'Horses and men chopped into hash by the
bullets ... appearing ... like piles of jelly ...
The logs in the breastworks were shattered
into splinters ... We had not only shot down
an army, but also a forest.' In the aftermath
of 'this most desperate struggle of the war,'
one Mississippian who survived admitted
that the tension and dread of the ordeal had
shattered their nervous systems. Once they
reached safe ground, the weary veterans
simply 'sat down on the wet ground and
wept. Not silently, but vociferously and long.'
Through the period 13-17 May, the Federal
army slipped steadily eastward, then
southeastward, extending toward and around
the Confederate right. This tactical measure
foreshadowed Grant's strategic agenda for the
next month, during which a crablike sliding
movement to the southeast sought always to
get closer to Richmond than Lee's army.
Already he had unleashed Sheridan's cavalry to
raid toward the Southern capital. The raiders
did not get into Richmond, but they did kill
the Confederacy's incomparable cavalry leader,
General J. E. B. Stuart, in fighting around
Yellow Tavern. Stuart had said 'I had rather die
than be whipped.' Lee would miss his skill in
screening and reconnaissance functions.
Although fighting flared all across the
lines with regularity, the next major Federal
attempt did not come until 18 May. On that
morning, Grant launched another massive
frontal assault against Lee's troops in their
strongly entrenched new lines across the
base of the Mule Shoe - a position that
came to be called 'Lee's Last Line.' Upton's
head-on attack on 10 May had worked; so
had the Hancock onslaught on 12 May;
perhaps what was needed was simply to
bludgeon Lee. This time, though,
Confederate cannon stood ready. Without
needing much help from supporting
infantry, they slaughtered Grant's attackers
without the least difficulty or danger.
The Army of the Potomac recoiled after
heavy losses, never having come close to
their enemies. As General Meade wrote
wearily to his wife the next day, after the
thorough repulse 'even Grant thought it
useless to [continue to] knock our heads
against a brick wall.' Most Southern infantry
hardly mentioned the event in their letters
and diaries, the repulse having been so easy
that it required 'but little participation of our
infantry.' A Confederate artillery colonel
wrote regretfully that the Yankee infantry
'wouldn't charge with any spirit.' In the words
of a boy from Richmond, 'the Union troops
broke and fled.'