Attack on the Muleshoe

General Ulysses S. Grant recognized the Muleshoe’s weakness and on May 12, just after dawn, 20,000 men of General Winfield S. Hancock’s Second Corps stormed across the field from left to right and swept over the Confederate works, capturing 3,000 men and 20 cannons in one of the most successful Union attacks of the Civil War. The capture of the Muleshoe nearly cut the Army of Northern Virginia in two and threatened its very existence. Lee counterattacked desperately to regain the lost ground or at least buy time to build a new line close to 1,000 yards behind the outer line. For the rest of the day, both generals funneled every available man into the Salient as Grant fought to win and Lee fought to survive, producing the most violent sustained combat in American history. Every Confederate realized the desperate situation and every Union soldier knew what was involved. For a time, every soldier was a fiend, the attack was fierce, and the resistance fanatical. The fighting on May 12 took place in a driving rain, and reinforcements from the Union Sixth Corps fought from the ravine in front.

Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia · United States