In the course of the afternoon of Saturday, a sharp engagement took place between the Union and rebel cavalry—the loss on both sides being about equal, and not exceeding two hundred and fifty on either side. In the shadow of the darkness, Generals Burnside and Sedgwick moved along the old Chancellorsville road, and arrived at a field near Spottsylvania about noon of the following day. In the mean time General Warren, having marched the whole of Saturday night, also reached a place within three miles of Spottsylvania Court House, at an early hour in the morning. Here he encountered the troops of General Ewell, together with a portion of Longstreet’s command, who had also reached the same place, about the same time. In fact, the two armies had raced from the Wilderness battle-ground, in order to gain the choice of position at Spottsylvania; but the rebels had arrived first, and had thus gained the advantage. On Sunday morning the National troops were formed in line of battle two and a half miles north of Spottsylvania Court House. The rebels opposed them, defiant and formidable. Then began the terrible
BATTLE OF SPOTTSYLVANIA.
May 8–12, 1864.
While the advance troops of Warren’s corps pressed down the road, shells were thrown into their ranks with great rapidity, but the enemy fell back before them, making but feeble resistance. A short distance further on—at a place called Alsop’s farm—the artillery of the enemy was found to be stationed. The Union batteries were speedily placed in position to command those of the enemy. The Union battle line was hastily formed, and comprised General Griffin’s division on the right, and General Robinson’s on the left.
Firing began immediately on both sides. The Unionists advanced in a strong line upon the enemy, driving him back into a clearing in the woods at his rear, and then began the serious work of the day. The National troops rushed forward upon the enemy with all the impetuosity of dauntless bravery, and the fight became general in all directions. The remaining two divisions of Warren’s corps, commanded by Generals Crawford and Cutter—the latter in command of the lamented General Wadsworth’s troops—were hurried forward with all possible haste. The slaughter was horrible—men fell not by twos, or threes, or dozens, but by scores and hundreds, till the very earth seemed to sicken with the deluge of blood poured out upon its bosom. For four hours a battle raged, which, for the bravery displayed by the participants, the fury with which it was carried on, and the carnage it created, was not exceeded by any fight during the war. It will be understood, of course, that all this fighting took place before the arrival of the remaining corps of the army. The troops of General Warren, opposed as they were to three times their own number, felt how much depended on their holding their ground, and they fought with almost unexampled desperation. At the close of four hours one brigade of the Sixth corps came to the assistance of General Warren’s troops, which thus reinforced, not only held the enemy at bay, but drove him back. This closing struggle lasted for a considerable time, and was by far the fiercest of the day. The enemy threw his entire strength upon the Union line, but was nobly repulsed at every point, and compelled to fall back. With the exception of the single brigade alluded to above, the Fifth corps did the whole of the fighting of this hard-fought, well-won, and bravely contested day’s battle.
Many officers were wounded, among whom were General Robinson, Colonel Dennison, and Captain Martin. Major Stark and Colonel Ryan were killed. The regiments suffered terribly, especially the First Michigan, which went into the fight two hundred strong, and came out with a remnant of twenty-three. The Union loss in killed, wounded, and missing was estimated at thirteen hundred.
No great battle took place on Monday, the 8th. The time was occupied for the most part in skirmishing, followed at intervals by heavy cannonading. Toward evening General Grant ordered an advance on the enemy, which was made by the divisions of Generals Birney and Gibbon, followed by General Carroll’s brigade. This force crossed over to the south bank of a branch of the Po river, where a severe battle with infantry and artillery took place, both sides charging alternately. The Unionists were finally obliged to retire, and the enemy held Spottsylvania Court House.
Upon this day the National cause suffered one of its greatest losses in the death of an officer whose place could not easily be filled. One of the most gloomy and saddening calamities of the disastrous battles of Spottsylvania Court House, was the death of General John Sedgwick, commanding the sixth corps. General Sedgwick was an almost recklessly brave man, and constantly exposed to the enemy’s bullets a life too precious to have been held lightly. He was killed on Monday morning, by a sharpshooter, while superintending the placing of a section of artillery. The ball entered his head one inch below the left eye, and passed out at the back of the right ear, causing instant death. No general of the United States service was more highly respected or more sincerely beloved.
General Sedgwick was a native of Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut, to which place his ancestors removed from West Hartford one hundred and twenty years ago, and he resided on the old homestead, which has been in possession of the family during all these years. His grandfather, General John Sedgwick, was an officer in the Revolutionary War, and transmitted an honored name to the distinguished Sedgwick families of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. General Sedgwick was born in 1811, and graduated at West Point in 1837.
He was always warmly attached to the Litchfield home, and in all his active military life looked forward to the time he might retire to it in his declining years. Just before the rebellion broke out he had seriously contemplated such retirement, and on the first demonstration of treason he told a relative that his hope had been to leave public life, but added that it could not be now, for his country needed his services. In private life General Sedgwick was an unassuming, retiring man, possessing strong feelings and attachments. He was never married, but kept up his ancestral estate under the care of an unmarried sister, who was devotedly attached to him.
The remains of General Sedgwick were brought to New York city, where they lay in state at the City Hall, and were subsequently taken to his native home, where he was buried with military honors.