No Turning Back

Defeated but undeterred, Grant left Spotsylvania on May 21, 1864, and continued south toward the North Anna River, Richmond, and ultimate victory, while Lee followed and the deadliest contest of the war went on. If the fighting at Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House is considered one engagement, it was the bloodiest single battle in American history, with some 36,000 Union soldiers and 24,000 Confederates killed, wounded, captured, or missing from May 5 to May 21, 1864, about 30 percent of those engaged. The enormous losses outraged many in the North, but Grant understood that he could replace his losses while Lee could not, and he had engaged Lee in a war of attrition that the South could not win. Although the struggle at the Bloody Angle marked the height of the fighting at Spotsylvania, combat continued on May 14, 18, and 19 without decisive results, and Grant, believing the Confederates were very shaky, sought a blow that would destroy the Army of Northern Virginia beyond repair. That blow did not come there, and Wilderness and Spotsylvania instead became the opening battles of a yearlong campaign that continued through North Anna River, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and other places until Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Casualties at Spotsylvania were appalling, with about 4,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dying in the battle, including Mississippi soldiers killed at the Bloody Angle.

Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia · United States