159 years ago today, some of the bloodiest and sustained close range fighting of the Civil War occurred starting at 4:30 a.m. near Spotsylvania CH.

Grant followed up a near successful brigade attack on the 10th by Emory Upton against the Confederate Mule Shoe, with a Corps sized attack by Hancock's Second Corps this day. The fighting would go on almost without pause for 24 hours with Warren's 5th Corps and Burnside's 9th Corps joining the fray. The Federals cleared the Mule Shoe (called the Bloody Angle after that day) only to have Lee and Ewell organize a counter attack that drove the Federals back to the original entrenchments. For a desperate 18 hours, fighting at point blank range continued, while Lee's engineers finished a new line of entrenchments at the base of the Mule Shoe. During that time, the men were only separated by the rampart of the entrenchments. Brave (or foolish) soldiers would stand on the ramparts and fire down on their enemies at point blank range, some would pull the men off the ramparts and hack them to death with hatchets. Many soldiers forced their weapons between the entrenchment logs to fire at the troops on the other side. Muskets with bayonets were hurled like spears. No doubt more head wounds occurred in this battle than any other in the war. More than one soldier described the hell of being covered with blood and brains of others. The Confederate ditch became filled with water from the rain and was red both from the soil and blood. It was hell on earth.

Captain Alexander Pattison of the 7th Indiana after the battle recorded the prayer he said that day in his diary:

Quote:

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Father, spare me from more sorrows. For our griefs are more than we can bear. My best men are falling around me and I am untouched . I am not better than they.

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22 inch diameter oak tree cut in half by musket fire at Spotsylvania

I regret I only had minutes to visit Spotsylvania a few years ago. Spent alot of time at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and the Wilderness but just ran out of time.

You need at least two days to take in all four battlefields and the Jackson shrine. Just too much to see.

I agree. We had already spent two days at Gettysburg and were on our way to visit family around Williamsburg. I was able to get a day at the other 4. Always next time!

The civil war history always mentions the brutality of the fighting. Was it similar to any other fighting during that period and if not, what made it be so?

BQ78 said:

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You need at least two days to take in all four battlefields and the Jackson shrine. Just too much to see.

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When I was a new MAJ in the Basic Strategic Arts Program (Army FA-59 school), we did a week long staff ride of the entire Overland Campaign. We started at the Wilderness, then to Spotsylvania Courthouse, North Anna, Cold Harbor, City Point, Petersburg, Five Forks, and ending at Appamatox Courthouse.

One of the guides/leaders (oddly, a Navy O-6 CSAR pilot and instructor at the Army War College)* had actually written a chapter of his dissertation on the attack by Upton's brigade. The topic of the dissertation was the effect of microterrain on Civil War battles. At the place where Upton's brigade attacked (a location specifically chosen by Upton), there was a creek bed running near to parallel to the Confederate lines that allowed the brigade to get into the attack position without being fired on, and then from there a slight dip in the ground running directly to the Confederate lines where they made their attack, providing partial cover.

It also helped that that Upton was able to pick and train his regiments especially for the attack. If the rest of the division and corps had been ready to exploit Upton's success, the Army of NoVa might have been wedged out of its position on that day.

* This instructor was also a direct line descendant of a soldier in Lee's army. The good captain actually had his however-many-greats grandpappy's Virginia militia uniform in a case on the wall in his office. He also had what I think is one of the most interesting takes I've ever heard on the cause of the Civil War. "The American Civil War was about states' rights - the states' rights to own slaves." But that's a whole 'nother discussion, which I know has gone around and around on this forum more than once.

Large maneuverable armies with rifled weapons making war on civilians. Those were the differences that made the Civil War the most vicious war of the 19th century.

AtlAg05 said:

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The civil war history always mentions the brutality of the fighting. Was it similar to any other fighting during that period and if not, what made it be so?

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The fighting at the Angle was not typical of any battle during the civil war. There was continuous fighting at arms length distances for 18 hours. They were bayoneting and shooting each other through openings in logs. Woundd men were drowning in the mud. The dead were reduced to mush. That is what Spostylvania was remembered for.

War is brutal period.

Sapper mentions the Napolianic Wars. Cavalry charging Infantry squares. The cavalry is butchered by cannon at the corners but if the square is broken the roles are reversed.

I saw a video of trench fighting in Ukraine the other day filmed from a drone. We are talking men chunking granades from mere feet at each other. Men cowaring in holes and the enemy walking up an shooting them at point blank ranges....

Napoleonic Wars had very little rifles weapons and no railroads and the logistics capabilities to keep large armies in the field like you saw in the Civil War.

Sure they had big armies but it was a bunch of mini-wars where one campaign settled the mini-war and it was over, not sustained like the Civil War.

Waterloo had roughly the same amount of casualties as Gettysburg but was tiny in comparison. Roughly 50k -60k casualties within 5 sq miles.

The storming of Badajoz was terrible.

The Paraguayan War between Paraguay and Brazil and Allie's took approx 500K lives

Taiping Rebellion in China ended in 1864 with 20-30 million dead.

For what it's worth of the approx. 600K dead in the ACW the vast majority were from disease and not combat. Something like 1/6 died from battle

The Peninsular Campaign listed from 1809-1813

I would throw Franklin into the mix as rivaling the Bloody Angle for just brutal fighting. Not up close and personal like the angle for a sustained period but very savage. The Confederates who made that charge were the diehards and the combat showed it.

Guerrilla warfare tends to make things ugly and brutal and the Civil War had that. Think Lawrence and ear necklaces of Bloody Bill Anderson in Missouri, not to mention Kentucky, East Tennessee, West Virginia and Northern Virginia.

Clara Barton arrives on May 13. "Angel of the Battlefield"