On this date 155 years ago, the first major fighting at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House occurs.

After Hancock failed to attack on the afternoon of May 9, Robert E. Lee moved reinforcements to his left to face the imminent threat that was Hancock's II Corps. While at first furious with Hancock's failure to assault the Confederate left before reinforcements could be sent to the area, Grant guessed (incorrectly) that an opportunity had opened up around Laurel Hill.

Grant believed that the reinforcements Lee had sent to reinforce Anderson's Corps had come from Laurel Hill. He therefore ordered Hancock to withdraw north of the Po River, leaving a division behind to occuy the Confederates in that sector. The rest of the army would attack at 5 PM across the entire Confederate line, which would hopefully identify and exploit potential weak spots.

Around 2 PM, the division left behind by Hancock - that of Francis Barlow - was attacked by Confederate forces under the command of Jubal Early. Confederate artillery set the woods around Barlow's position on fire and quickly made Barlow's line untenable. He managed to retreat his men back across the Po and destroyed the bridges behind them.

Hancock was called back to the Po sector to help support Barlow's withdrawal, which left the operation against Laurel Hill under the charge of Gouverneur K. Warren and the Union V Corps. Warren, looking to make up for his failures over the last 48 hours, requested permission from Meade to attack Laurel Hill immediately - separate from the general attack scheduled for 5 PM. For reasons that remain cloudy to this day, Meade consented and Warren's attack went forward at 4 PM.

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House - May 10, 1864 (Grant Attacks!)

The assault was repulsed with bloody results, forcing Grant to have to postpone his general attack on Lee's lines until Warren's lines could be reformed.

At 6 PM, the Union VI Corps went forward against the Mule Shoe in an unusual formation. Led by Henry Upton, this force of 5,000 hand-picked men advanced across the open field in four separate ranks. The goal was to breakthrough an identified weak point in the line known as Doles's Salient. Upton ordered his men to rush across the field as quickly as possible without firing a shot, reaching the earthworks before the Confederates could get off more than a couple of rounds.

If all went well, the division behind Upton - commanded Gershom Mott - would come in behind and widen whatever breakthrough Upton's men managed to achieve. Upton's men went forward as planned and managed to break through the Confederate lines at the Mule Shoe, routing all Confederates in the area. Upton sent a courier to Mott urging him to move his men along quickly. The problem was....Mott's division was no longer on the field. Confederate artillery, firing wildly at Upton's charging Yankees, had spooked Mott's battle-weary men and sent them flying to the rear. They never made it to within a quarter of a mile of the Confederate lines.

Lee and Ewell led a massive counterattack into the Mule Shoe and managed to overwhelm Upton's division through sheer strength of numbers. In the gathering darkness, Upton's shattered unit retreated back across the no-mans-land between both armies.

Also around 6 PM, on the Union left flank, Burnside advanced his IX Corps along the Fredericksburg Road. Both he and Grant were unaware that when Lee had moved units to the Po, he had left only Cadmus Wilcox's Confederate division to defend that avenue of approach and that there was a large gap between Wilcox and Ewell. As Burnside began to get resistance from Wilcox, he timidly stopped and entrenched. That evening Grant decided that Burnside was too isolated from the rest of the line and ordered him to pull back behind the Ni and move to join his lines with Wright's. Grant wrote about this significant lost opportunity in his Personal Memoirs:

quote:
"Burnside on the left had got up to within a few hundred yards of Spottsylvania Court House, completely turning Lee's right. He was not aware of the importance of the advantage he had gained, and I, being with the troops where the heavy fighting was, did not know of it at the time. He had gained his position with but little fighting, and almost without loss. Burnside's position now separated him widely from Wright's corps, the corps nearest to him. At night he was ordered to join on to this. This brought him back about a mile, and lost to us an important advantage. I attach no blame to Burnside for this, but I do to myself for not having had a staff officer with him to report to me his position." - Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885)

This post was edited on 5/10/19 at 6:38 pm