Farm to Killing Field

On May 12, 1864, the pastures, potato patches, and crop-lots of Willis Landram's farm became North America's most notorious killing field. Just before dawn, 20,000 Union soldiers swarmed past the Landram house toward the main Confederate line on the ridge in front of this position. The sudden Union attack triggered a day of carnage, a 22-hour struggle for control of the Muleshoe Salient. Throughout the day, Union generals gathered near this spot to watch and direct the fighting. Union artillerymen built powerful earthworks that still stand in the woods to the right-rear and lobbed shells into the Confederate lines, 500 yards away. General Winfield Scot Hancock, commander of the Union Second Corps, made his headquarters in the Landram house. By day's end, Willis Landram's farm had been transformed. One soldier wrote, "May God in his mercy never again permit us to behold such a field of carnage and death."

Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia · United States