May 8 - 21, 1864

The battle was fought along a 4 mile trench, with the Army of Northern Virginia making its second attempt the spring offensive of the Army of the Potomac. This battle took place within days of the bloody, inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness, and it pitted 52,000 Confederate soldiers against the Union army numbering 100,000. On May 8th, Grant sent Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren and his 5th Corps to take Spotsylvania. Anticipating Grant's move, Lee sent forces to intercept him. The Confederate won the race to Spotsylvania, and on May 9th, each army began to take up new positions. As Union forces probed Confederate skirmish lines, to determine the placement of defending forces, the Union's 6th Corps commander Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick was killed by a sharpshooter. He was succeeded by Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright. Lee's men were placed in a trench line four miles long, with artillery placed that would allow firing on the attacking force. There was only one major weakness in Lee's line, an exposed salient known as the "Mule Shoe" extending more than a mile in front of the main line. Lee recognized this weakness on May 10th, when 12 regiments under the command of Col. Emory Upton followed up a concentrated, intense artillery attack by slamming into the toe of the Mule Shoe along a narrow front. They broke the Confederate line, and the 2nd Corps had a hard time driving them out. Upton's attack won him a promotion right on the spot to Brigadier General. Lee, seeing the danger, began to lay out new defensive lines across the heel of the Mule Shoe that night, but before it could be finished, Grant sent in his entire 2nd Corps of 15,000 men to attack the position in the same manner as Upton had. This time the breach in the Confederate line was complete, thanks in a large part to an order from Lee, moving most of the artillery back to a new line. The 2nd Corps took almost 4,000 prisoners and probably would have cut the Army of Northern Virginia in half if the 9th Corps supporting it with an assault on the Confederate right flank, had pushed its attacks home with force. Instead, Lee was able to shift thousands of his men to meet the threat. Due to ineffective leadership displayed by Maj. Gen. Ewell, Lee felt compelled to lead the 2nd Corps in the attack himself. His men realized the danger this would pose and refused to march until Lee removed himself to a safer position in the rear. The battle int he Mule Shoe lasted a day and a half, as the Confederates slowly won back all the ground they'd lost. By 3:00 pm on May 13th, just as the Confederates had finished expelling the 2nd corps from the Mule Shoe, the new line was ready, and Lee had his battered men retire behind it. more than 10,000 men fell in the Mule Shoe, which now passed to the Union forces without a fight. On May 18th, Grant sent two of his corps to attack the new line, but they were met with a bloody repulse. That convinced Grant, who had vowed to "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." that Lee's men couldn't be dislodged from their Spotsylvania line. Grant, checked by Lee for a second time, responded as he had 2 weeks earlier. He shifted the weight of his army to the right flank and again moved to the southeast along roads Lee was unable to block. By May 21st, the two armies were on their way to set up positions along the North Anna River, another dozen miles closer to the Confederate capital of Richmond.