Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

Battle of Spottsylvania by Thure de Thulstrup

Date	May 8–21, 1864
Location	Spotsylvania County, Virginia 38°13′27″N 77°35′53″W / 38.2242°N 77.5981°W / 38.2242; -77.5981Coordinates: 38°13′27″N 77°35′53″W / 38.2242°N 77.5981°W / 38.2242; -77.5981
Result	Inconclusive

Belligerents

United States (Union)

CSA (Confederacy)

Commanders and leaders

Ulysses S. Grant
George G. Meade

Robert E. Lee

Units involved

Army of Northern Virginia

Strength

100–110,000

50–63,000

Casualties and losses

18,399
(2,725 killed,
13,416 wounded,
2,258 captured/missing)

12,687
(1,515 killed,
5,414 wounded,
5,758 captured/missing)

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes more simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania (or the 19th-century spelling Spottsylvania), was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. Following the bloody but inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness, Grant's army disengaged from Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army and moved to the southeast, attempting to lure Lee into battle under more favorable conditions. Elements of Lee's army beat the Union army to the critical crossroads of Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia and began entrenching. Fighting occurred on and off from May 8 through May 21, 1864, as Grant tried various schemes to break the Confederate line. In the end, the battle was tactically inconclusive, but with almost 32,000 casualties on both sides, it was the costliest battle of the campaign.

On May 8, Union Maj. Gens. Gouverneur K. Warren and John Sedgwick unsuccessfully attempted to dislodge the Confederates under Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson from Laurel Hill, a position that was blocking them from Spotsylvania Court House. On May 10, Grant ordered attacks across the Confederate line of earthworks, which by now extended over 4 miles (6.5 km), including a prominent salient known as the Mule Shoe. Although the Union troops failed again at Laurel Hill, an innovative assault attempt by Col. Emory Upton against the Mule Shoe showed promise.

Grant used Upton's assault technique on a much larger scale on May 12 when he ordered the 15,000 men of Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's corps to assault the Mule Shoe. Hancock was initially successful, but the Confederate leadership rallied and repulsed his incursion. Attacks by Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright on the western edge of the Mule Shoe, which became known as the "Bloody Angle", involved almost 24 hours of desperate hand-to-hand fighting, some of the most intense of the Civil War. Supporting attacks by Warren and by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside were unsuccessful.

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