Grant Finds an Opening: May 12

Emory Upton's success on May 10 prompted Grant to repeat the attack on a much larger scale against the Muleshoe Salient, a huge outward bulge in the center of the Confederate line, because a breakthrough there could cut Lee's army in two and possibly destroy it. The May 12 attack was at first widely successful when, at dawn, General Winfield S. Hancock's Second Corps overran the Confederate line and captured 3,000 prisoners, two generals, and 20 cannon. Lee struck back furiously to drive the Union soldiers from the works, and for 20 hours in a pouring rain the two sides grappled as the Union army fought to win and the Confederates fought to survive. The fighting centered on a turn in the Confederate logworks known as the Bloody Angle, where men fought hand to hand with bayonets, used the butts of their guns as weapons, and exchanged point-blank fire over the works while bodies piled up deep in the mud. Neither side yielded an inch as the Confederates sacrificed their lives to give Lee time to build a new line across the base of the Muleshoe Salient. After more than 20 hours of combat, Lee's new line was ready, and he withdrew his battered troops from the Bloody Angle, leaving behind a landscape of unspeakable horror.

Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia · United States