Grant's general purpose was to place his army between the enemy and Richmond, interfering with the communications and compelling Lee to fight at disadvantage. The immediate purpose was a rapid march to Spottsylvania Court-House, fifteen miles southeast of the Wilderness battle-field, and a dozen miles southwest of Fredericksburg, to take a strong position covering the roads that radiate from that point. Warren's corps was to take the advance, marching by the Brock road, to be followed by Hancock's on the same road. Sedgwick's and Burnside's were to take a route farther north, through Chancellorsville. The trains were put in motion on Saturday, May 7th, and Warren began his march at nine o'clock that evening. To withdraw an army in this manner, in the presence of a powerful enemy, and send it forward to a new position, is a difficult and delicate task, as it may be attacked after it has left the old position and before it has gained the new. The method adopted by General Grant was repeated in each of his flanking movements between the Wilderness and the James. It consisted in withdrawing the corps that held his right flank, and passing it behind the others while they maintained their position. Four small rivers rise in this region—the Mat, the Ta, the Po, and the Ny—which unite to form the Mattapony. Spottsylvania Court-House is on the ridge between the Po and the Ny. The country around it is heavily wooded, and somewhat broken by ravines.
The distances that the two armies had to march to reach Spottsylvania Court-House were very nearly the same; if there was any difference, it favored the National; but two unforeseen circumstances determined the race and the form of the ensuing battle. The Brock road was occupied by a detachment of Confederate cavalry, and Warren's corps stood still while the National cavalry undertook to clear the way. This was not done easily, and the road was further obstructed where the Confederates had felled trees across it. After precious time had been lost Warren's corps went forward and cleared the way for itself. The other circumstance was more purely fortuitous. Anderson's division of Longstreet's corps led the Confederate advance, and Anderson had his orders to begin the march early on Sunday morning, the 8th. But from the burning of the woods he found no suitable ground for bivouac, and consequently marched all night. The National cavalry were in Spottsylvania Court-House Sunday morning, and found there but a slight force of cavalry, easily brushed away; but they had to retire before the Confederate infantry when Anderson came down the road. Consequently, when Warren came within sight of the Court-House, he found the same old foe intrenched in his front. Still, if Hancock had come up promptly, the works might have been carried by a rapid movement, and held till the army should be where Grant wanted it, in position between the enemy and their capital. But Hancock had been held back, because of apprehensions that the Confederates would make a heavy attack upon the rear of the moving columns. So the remainder of Longstreet's corps, and finally all of Lee's troops, poured into the rude sylvan fortress, and once more the Army of Northern Virginia stood at bay.
At this point of time, May 8th, Grant sent Sheridan with his cavalry to do to the Confederate army what in previous campaigns its cavalry had twice done to the Army of the Potomac—to ride entirely around it, tearing up railroads, destroying bridges and depots, and capturing trains. Sheridan set out to execute his orders with the energy and skill for which he was becoming famous. He destroyed ten miles of railroad and several trains of cars, cut all the telegraph wires, and recaptured four hundred prisoners who had been taken in the battle of the Wilderness and were on their way to Richmond. As soon as it was known which way he had gone, the Confederate cavalry set out to intercept him, and by hard riding got between him and Richmond. Sheridan's troops met them at Yellow Tavern, seven miles north of the city, and after a hard fight defeated and dispersed them, Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, the ablest cavalry leader in the Confederacy, being mortally wounded. Sheridan dashed through the outer defences of Richmond and took some prisoners, but found the inner ones too strong for him. He then crossed the Chickahominy, and rejoined the army on the 25th.
As the National army came into position before the intrenchments of Spottsylvania, Hancock's corps had the extreme right or western end of the line; then came Warren's, then Sedgwick's, and on the extreme left Burnside's. While Sedgwick's men were placing their batteries, they were annoyed by sharp-shooters, one of whom, apparently posted in a tree, seemed to be an unerring marksman. He is said to have destroyed twenty lives that day. The men naturally shrank back from their work, when General Sedgwick, coming up, expostulated with them, remarking that "they couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." As he stepped forward to the works, a bullet struck him in the face, and he fell dead. In his fall the army lost one of its best soldiers, and the country one of its purest patriots. Sedgwick had been offered higher command than he held, but had firmly declined it, from a modest estimate of his own powers. Gen. Horatio G. Wright succeeded him in the command of the Sixth Corps.
On the evening of the 9th Hancock's corps moved to the right, with a view to flanking and attacking the Confederate left, and made a reconnoissance at the point where the road from Shady Grove church crosses the Po on a wooden bridge. A brigade of Barlow's division laid down bridges and crossed the stream, but was confronted by intrenchments manned by a portion of Early's corps. It was now seen that the Confederate left rested on the stream at a point above, so that Hancock by crossing would only have isolated himself from the rest of the army and invited destruction. But before he could withdraw Barlow, the enemy sallied out from their intrenchments and attacked that brigade in heavy force. The assault was met with steady courage and repelled, with considerable loss to Barlow, but with much greater loss to the assailants. After a short interval the experiment was renewed, with precisely the same result; and Barlow then recrossed, under cover of a supporting column, and took up his bridges.
The weak point in the Confederate line was the salient at the northern point of their intrenchment. A salient is weak because almost any fire directed against it becomes an enfilading fire for one or another part of it. But the National army were not up in balloons, looking down upon the earth as a map; and they could only learn the shape of the Confederate intrenchments after traversing thick woods, following out by-paths and scrambling through dark ravines. As soon as the salient was discovered, preparations were made for assaulting it. The storming party consisted of twelve regiments of Wright's corps, commanded by Col. Emory Upton, and was to be supported by Mott's division of Hancock's, while at the same time the remainder of Wright's and all of Warren's corps were to advance and take advantage of any opportunity that should be made for them. While a heavy battery was firing rapidly at the salient and enfilading one of its sides, Upton's men formed under cover of the woods, near the enemy's line, and the instant the battery ceased firing, about six o'clock in the evening, burst out with a cheer, swept over the works after a short hand-to-hand fight, and captured more than a thousand prisoners, and a few guns. Mott, forming in open ground, did not move so promptly, suffered more from the fire of the enemy, and effected nothing. Warren's corps moved forward, but was driven back with heavy loss. In a second assault, they reached the breastworks and captured them after fierce fighting, but were not able to hold them when strong Confederate reinforcements came up, and retired again. Upton, who had broken through a second line of intrenchments, seemed to have opened a way for the destruction of the Confederate army; but the difficulties of the ground and the lateness of the hour made it impracticable to follow up the advantage by pouring a whole corps through the gap and taking everything in reverse. After dark, Upton's men withdrew, bringing the prisoners and the captured battle-flags, but leaving the guns behind. For this exploit, in which he was severely wounded, Colonel Upton was made a brigadier-general on the field. While this was going on, Burnside, at the extreme left of the line, had obtained a good position, from which he could have assaulted advantageously the Confederate right, which he overlapped. But this was not perceived, and as there was a dangerous gap between his corps and Wright's, he was drawn back in the night, and the advantage was lost.
| FALL OF GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK, AT SPOTTSYLVANIA. |
On the 11th it rained heavily, and there was no fighting; but there were reconnoissances and preparations for a renewal of the battle on the next day. Grant determined to make a heavier and more persistent assault upon the tempting salient, and moved Hancock's corps by a wood-road, after dark, to a point opposite the apex. The morning of the 12th was foggy, but by half-past four o'clock it was light enough, and Hancock's men advanced, some of them passing through thickets of dead pines. When they were half-way across the open ground in front of the salient, they burst into a wild cheer and rushed for the works. Here they were met by a brave and determined resistance on the part of the half-surprised Confederates, who fought irregularly with clubbed muskets. But nothing could resist the impetus of Hancock's corps, which was over the breastworks in a few seconds. Large numbers of Confederates were killed, mostly with the bayonet. So sudden was Hancock's irruption into the enemy's works, that he captured Gen. Edward Johnson's entire division of nearly four thousand men, with its commander and also Brigadier-General Steuart. "How are you, Steuart?" said Hancock, recognizing in his prisoner an old army friend, and extending his hand. "I am General Steuart, of the Confederate army," was the reply, "and under the circumstances I decline to take your hand." "Under any other circumstances," said Hancock quietly, "I should not have offered it." Hancock's men had also captured twenty guns, with their horses and caissons, thousands of small arms, and thirty battle-flags. The guns were immediately turned upon the enemy, who was followed through the woods toward Spottsylvania Court-House till the pursuers ran up against another line of intrenchments, which had been constructed in the night across the base of the salient. At the same time that Hancock assaulted at the apex, Warren and Burnside had assaulted at the sides, but with less success, though their men reached the breastworks.
Lee understood too well the danger of having his line thus ruptured at the centre, and poured his men into the salient with a determination to retake it, for which some of his critics have censured him. Hancock's men, when the pressure became too great for them, fell back slowly to the outer intrenchments, and turning, used them as their own. Five times the Confederates attacked these in heavy masses, and five times they were repelled with bloody loss. Before, they had been at disadvantage from defending a salient, and now they were at equal disadvantage in assailing a reëntrant angle. To add to the slaughter, Hancock had established several batteries on high ground, where they could fire over the heads of his own men and strike the enemy beyond. Here and along the west face of the angle the fighting was kept up all day, and was most desperate and destructive. Field guns were run up close to the works and fired into the masses of Confederate troops within the salient, creating terrible havoc; but in turn the horses and gunners were certain to be shot down. There was hand-to-hand fighting over the breastworks, and finally the men of the two armies were crouching on either side of them, shooting and stabbing through the crevices between the logs. Sometimes one would mount upon the works and have loaded muskets passed up to him rapidly, which he would fire in quick succession till the certain bullet came that was to end his career, and he tumbled into the ditch. In several instances men were pulled over the breastworks and made prisoners. One doughty but diminutive Georgian officer nearly died of mortification when a huge Wisconsin colonel reached over, seized him by the collar, and in a twinkling jerked him out of the jurisdiction of the Confederacy and into that of the United States. The fighting around the "death-angle," as the soldiers called it, was kept up till past midnight, when the Confederates finally withdrew to their interior line. The dead were not only literally piled in heaps, but their bodies were terribly torn and mangled by the shot. Every tree and bush was cut down or killed by the balls, and in one instance the body of an oak tree nearly two feet in diameter was completely cut through by bullets, and in falling injured several men of a South Carolina regiment. Not even Sickles' salient at Gettysburg had been so fatal as this. If courage were all that a nation required, there was courage enough at Spottsylvania, on either side of the intrenchments, to have made a nation out of every State in the Union.