The Battle of the Salient—The point to be assailed was where Lee's intrenchments had been carried northward to enclose a space about a mile in length and half a mile in width, of the general shape of an acorn : the Con federates called it the °Mule-Shoe.° Taken together, the faces of the salient or °Mule-Shoe° covered about two and one-quarter miles in length, and were occupied mainly by Ewell's corps, Edward Johnson's division holding the apex or east angle of the works, and Rodes' division the west angle and face. To provide against contingencies, a second line had been laid off and partly constructed some distance in rear, so as to cut off the salient at its base. In rear of this line was Gordon's division as a reserve. On Ewell's right was A. P. Hill's corps; on his left was Longstreet's, commanded by R. H. Anderson. General Lee had detected some movements that indicated a withdrawal from the front of Anderson's corps and, under the impression that Grant had begun another flank ing movement, late in the day he ordered the withdrawal of all the artillery in the left and centre, which was difficult of access, that it should be done before it was entirely dark and that everything should be in readiness to move at any moment. Under this order Ewell's chief of artillery removed all but two batteries from the line of Edward Johnson's division. During the night Johnson discovered that the Union troops were massing in his front; and, convinced that he would be attacked in the morning, he asked Ewell for the immediate return of the artillery. The men in the trenches were on the alert, when at dawn on the morn ing of the 12th they saw a dense column emerge from the woods half a mile in front of the salient and rush to the attack. Johnson says: They came on in great disorder, with a narrow front, extending back as far as I could The charging column was Barlow's division, led by the brigades 'of Brooke and Miles. It had been ordered to make the assault at 4 o'clock, but owing to a heavy fog it was not sufficiently light to enable objects to be clearly discerned until 4.30, when the order to charge was given. Birney, on the right, met difficulty in the rough ground over which he moved, but kept nearly abreast of Barlow's line. When the Confederate works were seen a wild cheer was given; Brooke and Miles tore down the abatis, and in the face of a deadly fire sprang over the intrenchments, and a desperate hand to-hand encounter ensued ; Birney came up on the right; the battalion of Confederate artillery that had been withdrawn came back just in time to have its horses and cannoneers shot down before a gun could be fired; and in a very short time nearly a mile of the works had been carried. General Johnson himself and General Steuart, 20 guns, 30 colors and nearly 3,000 men were captured. With scarcely a halt Barlow and Birney swept on for nearly half a mile; then, thoroughly disorganized, they were brought to a stand before another line of works, held by Gen. J. B. Gordon's division and Lane's brigade of Hill's corps. As Gordon was about to charge, General Lee rode up and joined him, evidently intending to go forward with him. Gordon remonstrated, the men cried, °General Lee to the rear!° and one of them seized the general's bridle and led his horse to the rear, and Gordon's men went forward and attacked the Union lines in rear of the captured works. After a fierce struggle in the pine woods the Union troops, piled in one upon another, six or eight lines deep, were forced back out of the works but held the outer side of them. The Sixth corps, coming up, took post on the right of the Second, occupying the line from the west angle southward; Mott's division joined the Sixth corps at that angle; Birney's division came next on the left ; then Gibbon's; then Barlow's. All set at work to turn the captured intrenchments. There was great confusion in the intermingling of commands on a narrow front, and the Confederates now made most determined efforts to recover their intrench ments. Anderson sent troops from the left, three brigades of Hill's corps came from the right, and for the distance of nearly a mile, amid a cold, drenching rain, the combatants en gaged in a desperate struggle across the breast works. General Walker, the historian of the Second corps, says: °They fired directly into each other's faces; bayonet thrusts were given over the intrenchments; men even grappled with their antagonists across the piles of logs and pulled them over, to 'be stabbed or carried to the rear as prisoners. General Hancock had, as soon as the first success was achieved, brought up some of his guns to within 300 yards of the captured works, and these were now pouring solid shot and shell over the heads of our troops, into the space crowded with the Confederate brigades; he even ran a section of Brown's Rhode Island, and a section of Gibbs' Fifth United States, up to the breast works; and though the muzzles protruded into the very faces of the charging Confederates, the begrimed cannoneers for a time continued to pour canister into the woods and over the open ground on the west of the McCod house. The contest had settled down to a struggle for the recovery of the apex of the salient between the east and the west angle. . . . Never before since the discovery of gunpowder, had such a mass of lead been hurled into a space so nar row as that which now embraced the scene of combat. Large standing trees were literally cut off and brought to the ground by infantry-fire alone. If any comparison can be made between the sections involved in that desperate contest, the fiercest and deadliest fighting took place at the west angle, ever afterward known as The Bloody Angle.> Here Wright's Sixth corps had taken post on coming up at 6'o'clock. . . All day long the bloody work went on, and still the men of the North and of the South were not gorged with slaughter. The trenches
had more than once to be cleared of the dead, to give the living a place to stand. All day long, and even into the night, the battle lasted, for it was not till 12 o'clock, nearly 20 hours after the command
On the morning of the 13th it was ascer tained that the Confederates, failing to recover their lost entrenchments, had fallen back, and Colonel Carroll, with a brigade of the Second corps, went forward to reconnoiter, found them strongly intrenched on a new line at the base of the salient and after a sharp engagement withdrew. Dispositions were now made to turn Lee's right flank, and during the night of the 13th the Fifth corps, followed by the Sixth, moved over to the Fredericksburg road. The 14th was occupied in getting the two corps in position. The Confederates were found strongly intrenched on the Fredericksburg road in front of Spottsylvania Court House, and an attack was deemed inexpedient. During the day the Confederates attacked Upton's brigade of the Sixth corps, and compelled it to fall back from an advanced position, but the ground was immediately retaken by a brigade from the Fifth and one from the Sixth corps. When Lee saw that the Fifth corps had moved away from Anderson's front, Anderson's corps was shifted from the left to the extreme right, beyond the Fredericksburg road, and extended the line to Po River. Ewell still held the works in rear of the bloody salient. From the 12th to the 18th Grant was employed in constant recon noitering and skirmishing, developing Lee's position and ascertaining if he could find a weak point in it; also in establishing a base at Aquia Creek, sending the sick and wounded there, drawing necessary supplies and await ing the arrival of reinforcements from Wash ington to fill his depleted ranks. Early in the morning of the 18th the Second corps, sup ported by the Sixth corps on the right and Burn side's Ninth corps on the left, Warren assist ing with his heavy artillery, made an attempt to force the lines held by Ewell's corps, at the only point where former efforts had met with even partial success. It was a failure. Under the fire of 29 guns of Carter's battalion, which swept all the approaches to Ewell's line, the attacking force was driven back before it came well within reach of musketry, with a loss of over 2,000 killed and wounded. Grant gave up further effort; deeming it impracticable to break Lee's lines at Spottsylvania Court House, he issued orders on the 18th with a view to a movement to the North Anna to begin at 12 o'clock on the night of the 19th. In pursuance to this plan, on the 19th the Second and Ninth corps were moved to the left, the Ninth corps taking position on the left of the Sixth, with the Second in reserve. Late in the afternoon Ewell's corps attempted a flank march around Grant's left to ascertain the extent of his move ment and get possession of the Fredericksburg road. He was met by Tyler's division of new troops, who, being reinforced by Crawford's division of the Fifth corps and Birney's of the Second, after a severe engagement lasting until dark, drove Ewell back. Some of Ewell's forces, pushing to the rear on the Fredericks burg road, met Ferrero's division of colored troops, by whom they were repulsed. Ewell's loss during the day was about 900. Grant re ports his own loss as 196 killed, 1,090 wounded and 249 missing. Ewell's attack delayed Grant's march for the North Anna 24 hours. On the night of the 20th the Second corps and a small force of cavalry under General Torbert were pushed through Bowling Green to Milford, followed on the three succeeding days by the rest of the army. Lee followed, and the lines around Spottsylvania Court House were de serted. The entire losses of the Union army around Spottsylvania Court House from May 8 to 19 inclusive are estimated by General Humphreys as 15,722 killed and wounded, and 2,001 missing, an aggregate of 17,723. The Confederate losses are not known, but were very severe. Consult (Official Records) (Vol. XXXVI) ; Humphreys, A. A.,