A Different Kind of War

With the 1864 Overland Campaign, the war in Virginia changed from the old pattern of fight, retreat, and rest to Ulysses S. Grant's relentless maneuvering and fighting. Under attack by superior force, Southern troops protected themselves behind stout earth-and-log defenses, and Union efforts to drive them from those works produced some of the most desperate combat in American history. The Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River on May 4, 1864, and fought Lee's army in the Wilderness. When two days of fighting failed to bring victory, Grant ordered a night march to Spotsylvania Court House to try to get between Lee's army and Richmond or draw Lee into the open field. Lee anticipated the move, and late on May 7 General Richard H. Anderson rushed his corps to Spotsylvania by a parallel route, arriving just minutes ahead of the Union column. The armies clashed on Laurel Hill, and the stalemate allowed the rest of Lee's army to arrive. That night both sides began digging, and two weeks of trench warfare followed. By 1864, General Robert E. Lee's fame had become almost mythic after two years of successfully defending Virginia despite chronic shortages of men and supplies, and Southern soldiers retained deep confidence in him. Respect came more slowly for General Ulysses S. Grant, whose western successes had not convinced many soldiers in the Army of the Potomac that he could match Lee, but the Battle of the Wilderness erased those doubts, and as Grant led the army south to Spotsylvania cheering soldiers lined the route. At Spotsylvania Court House, trench warfare reached new levels as Confederates built a six-mile line of earthworks from the Po River to beyond the court house and Federals dug a parallel line about 400 yards away. Grant declared, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." By the time the armies left Spotsylvania, they had spent more than two weeks fighting, digging, and maneuvering in stifling heat and knee-high mud, hungry, dirty, exhausted, and worn down by fatigue, lack of sleep, and the unending misery of battle.

Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia · United States