Jeffry D. Wert - The Heart of Hell (Civil War America)

The Heart of Hell

Civil War America

PETER S. CARMICHAEL, CAROLINE E. JANNEY, and AARON SHEEHAN-DEAN, editors

This landmark series interprets broadly the history and culture of the Civil War era through the long nineteenth century and beyond. Drawing on diverse approaches and methods, the series publishes historical works that explore all aspects of the war, biographies of leading commanders, and tactical and campaign studies, along with select editions of primary sources. Together, these books shed new light on an era that remains central to our understanding of American and world history.

The Heart of Hell

THE SOLDIERS STRUGGLE FOR SPOTSYLVANIAS BLOODY ANGLE

Jeffry D. Wert

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CHAPEL HILL

2022 Jeffry D. Wert

All rights reserved

Set in Miller and Stymie by Westchester Publishing Services

Manufactured in the United States of America

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wert, Jeffry D., author.

Title: The heart of hell : the soldiers struggle for Spotsylvanias Bloody Angle / Jeffry D. Wert.

Other titles: Civil War America (Series)

Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2022] | Series: Civil War America | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021054796 | ISBN 9781469668420 (cloth) | ISBN 9781469668437 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : Spotsylvania Court House, Battle of, Va., 1864.

Classification: LCC E 476.52 . W 45 2022 | DDC 973.7/36dc23/eng/20211116

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021054796

Jacket illustrations: Front , Thure de Thulstrup, Battle of Spottsylvania [sic] (Boston: L. Sprang & Co., 1887); back , Alfred R. Waud, The Toughest Fight Yet (May 12, 1864). Both courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

To Gloria, Jason, Kathy, Rachel, Gabriel, Natalie, and Grant with love.

Contents

Maps

Preface

At 4:35 A.M. on Thursday, May 12, 1864, twenty thousand officers and men of the Second Corps, Union Army of the Potomac stepped forth. Ordered by General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant to lead a major offensive, these veteran troops advanced toward a bulge (often referred to as a salient) in Confederate defenses outside of Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. Ahead of them, their foes in the Army of Northern Virginia maintained a tenuous position behind earthworks.

Battle-tested as both armies were, neither side could anticipate the hellish ordeal that would unfold over the next day. But for weeks they had speculated around campfires about when once again they would meet their old foes on battlefields. In this, the conflicts fourth spring, the wars end seemed as elusive as it had in the previous three. Although Union forces had won critical victories at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the summer of 1863, two major Confederate armies remained in the field, standing defiantly in Virginia and in Georgia. As the officers and men anticipated, active campaigning resumed with warm weather and the drying of roads during the first week of May. Union offensives went forward against both Confederate forces, with coordinated movements that had been planned and ordered by Grant, appointed commander of federal forces with the rank of lieutenant general two months earlier.

In Georgia, Major General William T. Sherman led three armies south toward Atlanta, against General Joseph E. Johnstons Army of Tennessee. In Virginia, meanwhile, the offensive consisted of a three-prong advanceone, south up the Shenandoah Valley toward rail connections; a second on Bermuda Hundred between the James and Appomattox rivers toward the Confederate capital of Richmond; and the main operation in central Virginia against General Robert E. Lees redoubtable Confederate host. Each of these offensives, each forthcoming engagement, each advance or retreat unfolded against the backdrop of the falls presidential election in the North.

Grant accompanied Major General George G. Meades Army of the Potomac in its confrontation with Lees Army of Northern Virginia, pitting the conflicts greatest generals against one another. In their letters and diaries during the early spring, soldiers in both armies awaited the historic meeting between the pair, arguing who would be the victor. Both commanders, however, faced difficulties. Within days of the campaigns outset, Grant witnessed firsthand the armys leadership, which was plagued by cautiousness characterized by a deeply held attitude of avoiding defeat instead of attaining victory. This attitude had been the armys history and its curse, ingrained seemingly into the armys soul by its second commander, George B. McClellan. Grant soon determined that he would have to direct the operations personally if he was to exorcise McClellans ghost.

For Lee, the difficulties were far graver. His battle-tested veteransarguably the wars finestwould have to wage a struggle against a force nearly twice its size. The armys combat prowess suffered from a depleted officer ranks, particularly at the rank of major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel. Furthermore, Lee had mounting concerns with the capabilities of corps commanders Richard Ewell and A. P. Hill. Lee understood also that his army would likely be waging a defensive struggle in the impending campaign, whose direction rested with his opponent.

It took time for Grant and Lee to take the measure of each other. The long-awaited encounter began in the so-called Overland Campaign on May 4, when the Federals crossed the Rapidan River, moving south and east. It had been exactly ten months since the Rebels had begun a retreat after their defeat by the Yankees at Gettysburg. Since then, these foes had met in a pair of indecisive operationsthe Bristoe Campaign in October 1863 and the Mine Run Campaign in November. The first major clash came on May 5, in a blinding struggle in the Wilderness of Spotsylvania. On this day and the next, the opponents fought each other in a series of attacks and counterattacks. By nightfall on May 6, the armies remained on the battlefield. Unlike in the past, the Federals went forward, not back, the next day. To Grant, there was to be no retreating, and he directed the army toward Spotsylvania Court House on the roads to Richmond. There, on a rainy Thursday, began a dark future: land scarred by entrenchments, doomed assaults, and daily bloodletting that those in the ranks endured in an unending nightmare from North Anna to Cold Harbor to the many battlefields of Petersburg.

The armies remained outside of the crossroads village of Spotsylvania from May 8 until May 20. By the time they departed, the nature of warfare in the Overland and future campaigns had been altered. Both armies had erected fieldworks in the Wilderness; in fact, the first extensive use of such works in Virginia had been by Lees troops during the Mine Run Campaign. At Spotsylvania, however, the entrenchments of logs and dirt extended for miles. Behind them Confederate defenders repulsed enemy frontal assaults on May 8 and 10. Attacking in linear formations, Grants Union troops staggered and recoiled before the rifle and cannon fire from behind the man-made defenses.

A breakthrough occurred on the evening of May 10, when a dozen Union regiments, led by Colonel Emory Upton and stacked three regiments across in four lines, penetrated a section of the salient at the northern limit of Confederate lines. When reinforcements failed to appear, Confederate reserves drove back Uptons troops. But Uptons tactical use of a deep column and its limited success convinced Grant to undertake a larger and similarly arrayed attack on the salient, which its defenders had dubbed the Mule Shoe. So, in the morning darkness, fog, and rain of May 12, veteran infantrymen of the Second Corps charged.