Military
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The Bloody Angle was a small bend in the Confederate works within the much larger Muleshoe Salient, a huge outward bulge in the center of General Robert E. Lee’s six-mile-long defensive line. Confederate troops created the Muleshoe on the night of May 8, 1864, while attempting to weave together two lines of earthworks that ran at right angles to one another. Lee recognized that it was inherently weak and subject to converging fire from many directions, so he strengthened it with stout trenches and upwards of 30 cannon, yet it remained his most vulnerable point. For 22 hours on May 12 and May 13, 1864, combat raged here, bloodily demonstrating the danger of the position. Salients like the Muleshoe exposed their defenders to deadly converging crossfire, and if an enemy broke through, defenders could be attacked from both front and rear. Fraises, sharpened branches, were used there to obstruct the Union advance.
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Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia · United States
