What was the most significant event on May 12 during the U.S. Civil War?

2016-05-13T19:08:34-04:00

Death of a gentleman warrior. 1864: 31-year-old CSA Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart died
1864: The Battle of Spotsylvania from Confederate Artilleryman: “During the battle I saw a Yankee shell explode in front of one of our batteries. The butt end of the shell struck one of the drivers in the breast and went through him; when it struck him he jumped up about a foot from the saddle, then fell to the ground stretched out in full length, and never struggled. The battle-field of Spotsylvania Court House is undulating and diversified by hills and hollows, woods and fields, brushwood and thicket. It rained nearly all day, and sometimes when the rain poured down the hardest and almost in torrents the musketry was heaviest. It looked as if Heaven were trying to wash up the blood as fast as the civilized barbarians were spilling it.”
Mass slaughter at Spotsylvania. 1864: At about 4:35 AM, Hancock’s troops, three divisions under Birney, Mott, and Gibbon, in that order, advance in a column of divisions over the open ground before the Mule Shoe. Barlow’s somewhat battered division advances also, on the left flank of the other column. Hancock’s column clambers over the earthworks and smashes into Jones’ brigade and nearly vaporizes it; they next hit Steuart’s brigade, decimating it and capturing Gen. Steuart himself.
The Federals then roll over the brigades of Monaghan and John Walker (the Stonewall Brigade), both of which are suddenly decimated: nearly every man either died where he stood or was captured. The Stonewall Brigade ceases to exist. Alleghany Johnson, the division commander, is also captured. Some of the Southern artillery has just been wheeled up when the Federal attack captures all 20 guns in the battalion. Blue-coated soldiers fill up the Mule Shoe, but the attacking regiments are somewhat disorganized, however. Hancock soon finds that he has 15,000 men crowded into the Mule Shoe, and no plan for how to exploit his break. The Federal impetus bogs down.

Pictures: 1864 Grant's grand assault, May 12; 1864 Bloody Angle, Battle of Spotsylvania by Thure de Thulstrup; May 12, 1864 0400-0500 Spotsylvania court house Map; 1863 Raymond MS battle map
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House – 1864 – American Civil War
The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania , was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. Following the bloody but inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness, Grant's army disengaged from Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army and moved to the southeast, attempting to lure Lee into battle under more favorable conditions. Elements of Lee's army beat the Union army to the critical crossroads of Spotsylvania Court House and began entrenching. Fighting occurred on and off from May 8 through May 21, 1864, as Grant tried various schemes to break the Confederate line. In the end, the battle was tactically inconclusive, but with almost 32,000 casualties on both sides, it was the costliest battle of the campaign.
On May 8, Union Maj. Gens. Gouverneur K. Warren and John Sedgwick unsuccessfully attempted to dislodge the Confederates under Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson from Laurel Hill, a position that was blocking them from Spotsylvania Court House. On May 10, Grant ordered attacks across the Confederate line of earthworks, which by now extended over 4 miles , including a prominent salient known as the Mule Shoe. Although the Union troops failed again at Laurel Hill, an innovative assault attempt by Col. Emory Upton against the Mule Shoe showed promise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZyk5kyn3Io

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Battle of Spotsylvania Court House – 1864 – American Civil War

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania , was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant...

Response by SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL made May 13 at 2016 7:11 PM

2016-05-13T19:11:57-04:00

LTC Stephen F. thank you for this stellar Civil War history perspective. I am going with this:
1863: Battle of Raymond, Mississippi. Union Victory. Gen. John Gregg’s Confederate infantry division, almost 5,000 men, with artillery attacks Major General John Logan’s Union division in the town of Raymond, between Vicksburg and Jackson. Gen. James McPh.

Huge operation!

Response by LTC Stephen F. made May 13 at 2016 7:12 PM

2016-05-13T19:12:03-04:00

Thursday, May 12, 1864 Spotsylvania, Virginia Bloody Angle: Private Daniel Holt of Mississippi writes of his experience in the battles at the Bloody Angle, and of the inhumane horror of it: We were in the V-shaped salient that had traverses thrown up to prevent an enfilading fire. The line was mended, and we [had to] keep it mended. Soon the Yanks made a determined charge with fixed bayonets, but the mud fought for us as the “stars were against Sisera, and for Israel.” The breastwork was in a bog, and to make a charge in such a place against a line of fierce men close up, who have no idea of giving way, was more than those gallant Yanks could do.
Many of them were shot dead and sank down on the breastworks without pulling their feet out of the mud. Many others plunged forward when they were shot and fell headlong into the trench among us. Between charges we cleared the trench of dead and wounded and loaded all the guns we could get hold of for the next charge. I was shooting seven guns myself. We stacked them up against the breastwork with the butts on the trench, and when the Yanks came, we picked them up one by one and fired and sent them down again. Many times we could not put the gun to our shoulder by reason of the closeness of the enemy, so we shot from the hip.
All the time a drizzling rain was falling. The blood shed by the dead and wounded in the trench mixed with the mud and water. It became more than shoe deep, and soon it was smeared all over our clothes. We could hardly tell one another apart.
Pictures:
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania-wide angle;
1864 Spots may12map;
1863 Private William R. Clack, 43rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment; xx
July 1865: John Bingham, Judge Joseph Holt, and Brigadier General Henry Burnett, prosecutors for Lincoln assassination trial
Since RallyPoint truncates survey selection text I am posting events that were not included and then the full text of each survey choice below:
A. Tuesday, May 12, 1863: Battle of Raymond, Mississippi. Union Victory. Gen. John Gregg’s Confederate infantry division, almost 5,000 men, with artillery attacks Major General John Logan’s Union division in the town of Raymond, between Vicksburg and Jackson. Gen. James McPherson sends Gen. John "Black Jack" Logan forward with his division, and Logan deploys, at first, a single brigade to probe the Rebel line. Gregg assumes that a brigade is all he has to deal with, and orders his line forward. But he finds that Logan has deployed his entire division, with a lot of artillery. The Federals overlap the Confederate line, and Gregg’s line is smashed. The Rebels retreat, leaving the road to Jackson open, and tempting the Yankees with the capture of the two nearby railroads, that meet at Jackson. Grant decides to turn the bulk of his force toward Jackson.
Losses: Killed Wounded Captured/Missing Total
U.S. 68 341 37 446
C.S. 100 305 415 820
B. Thursday, May 12, 1864: Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart dies today from his wounds. He is only 31 years old, and Lee’s most trusted commander of cavalry. Death from peritonitis overtook Stuart at 7:40 p.m., four hours before his hastily summoned wife could reach his side. By then Stuart had disposed of his official papers and personal effects, had led his attendants in the singing of hymns, and had informed a stream of sorrowing visitors, including President Jefferson Davis, that he was willing to die ‘if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty.’ All he addressed in this way assured him that he had done so, nobly and well.
C. Thursday, May 12, 1864 Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia Day 5 Mule Shoe and Bloody Angle: Lee calls upon Gen. John B. Gordon to bring his division and move up to plug the gap. Gordon sends the brigade of Robert D. Johnston first, followed by Evans. Gen. Rodes sends a brigade to strike the west leg of the Mule Shoe, and Wright (VI Corps) sends in a division of Federals under Thomas Neill, who smash into the western face. In response, Gen. Mahone (C.S.) sends in two brigades to meet the VI Corps bluecoats. Wright then sends in David Russell’s division. Soon, here at the “Bloody Angle”, by 8:00 AM, rain begins falling in torrents again, and both armies find themselves on either side of the fortifications, a line of stacked logs, which is all that separates the combatants. The ground becomes slippery with rain and blood, and soldiers are stabbing their foes through the cracks between the logs, and they are passing loaded rifles up to the men at the wall, who fire without aiming over the tops. The struggle becomes a remorseless, bestial killing spree.
Wounded men slip and fall, and are trampled by their own comrades into the mud, and after a while the men are treading on bodies rather than earth. South Carolina veteran Berry Benson writes his memories of this part of the fight: “Where the lines overlapped, the men said they and the enemy both fired without showing their heads above the work, which was certain death. Guns were loaded, held up to the breastwork, depressed, and the trigger pulled with the thumb. One man told me he several times took in his hand the barrel of a gun pointing down on him, held it up till it was fired and then let it go.”
Meanwhile, Confederate engineers quickly throw up a new line of fortifications across the base of the salient, which is completed by the early hours of May 13.
At the same time, Burnside sends in Gen. Potter’s division to put pressure on the east face of the Mule Shoe. Lee sends a patchwork of several brigades to stop Potter. On the right flank, Grant orders Warren to push forward once again, at the costly Laurel Hill area, and attack the Rebel line there. Warren does so, but is repulsed with heavy losses.
As night falls, Lee leaves the salient in the hands of the Federals. The rain continues to fall. The Yankees suffer 9,000 casualties on the day, and the Confederates lose 8,000, but 2,000 of those as prisoners.
D. Friday, May 12, Friday, May 12, 1865: The 8 conspirators in the Lincoln assassination plead not guilty to the military court holding the trial: Lewis Powell, David Herold, Mary Surratt, Edman Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, George Atzerodt's, and Dr. Samuel Mudd. Testimony began in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial on May 12, just three days after the prisoners were first asked if they would like to have legal counsel. The rules of the Commission made the position of the defendants even more grave: conviction could come on a simple majority vote and a majority of two-thirds could impose the death sentence. Over the course of the next seven weeks, the Commission would hear from 371 witnesses. As the witnesses paraded to the stand, spectators lucky enough to get admission passes from Major General Hunter would move in and out of the nonchalant atmosphere of the courtroom.
1. Sunday, May 12, 1861: Benjamin Butler takes control of Federal Hill and threatens to fire on downtown Baltimore if Southern sympathizers protest.
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2. Monday, May 12, 1862: In a swift move, Gen. Burnside’s Coast Division in Pamlico sound lifts anchor in Goldsborough’s fleet of transports and sails from Roanoke Island south to the town of New Berne (Newbern), No. Carolina, a port on the mainland side of the Sound, on the Neuse River. David L. Day of the 25th Massachusetts records: This morning weighed anchor and our fleet, comprising upwards of 50 sail, steamed up the Pamlico sound for Newbern. After a few hours’ sail, large numbers of wild geese and ducks attracted our attention. Wide marshes which extend into the sound are their feeding ground, and from these they make their way a long distance into the sound. These waters appear to be their winter quarters. About 3 p. m., we enter the Neuse river, which is here about two miles wide. Situated on the left bank, thirty miles up the river, is the city of Newbern. Slowly we steam up the river, seeing nothing but the low, piney shores, and the smoke of the enemy’s signal fires. About 8 p. m., when 15 miles up the river, in a wide place forming a kind of bay, we dropped anchor for the night. The transports lay huddled together in the middle of the river, while a cordon of gunboats surrounds us as a picket. A dark, black night has settled down on us, and all is still and silent as the tomb. Not a sound is heard or a light seen, save the enemy’s signal fires, far up the river. This stillness is dreadful. It is really oppressive, and seems as though it has remained unbroken since the morning of creation. Our errand here is to make an attempt to occupy the city of Newbern, and if anybody attempts to stop us, there will be a big fight and somebody will be hurt.
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3. Monday, May 12, 1862 --- Ever candid, Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman of the Union Army of the Potomac, makes this ascerbic observation of the abandoned Confederate fortifications around Manassas: On examining the fortifications at Manassas to-day, we find them mounting "wooden guns." Subordinate officers have no right to ask questions, but if I were not a subordinate I should be strongly tempted to ask if, in eight to twelve months of anxiously watching the enemy, it were not possible to find out the nature of his defences? I really hope this oversight, or, rather, want of sight, does not indicate a wilful negligence on the part of some of our superiors.
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4. Monday, May 12, 1862 --- Jeremy Francis Gilmer of the Confederate Army in Alabama writes to his wife, Louisa ("Loulie") Gilmer, in Savannah, on the affairs of the Southern cause, including this grim account of the Battle of Pea Ridge, and the death of Gen. McIntosh, who was a personal friend: I am sorry to tell you that the reported victory of Van Dorn in Missouri turns out to be no victory _ Desperate fighting took place between his forces and the enemy the 7th inst: with heavy loss on both sides _ on ours; Genl: McCulloch and McIntosh. (Brother of Mrs Keeney) and Col: Hebert. (Brother to Col: Paul Hebert, who was formerly an officer of the Corps of U.S. Engineers) _ were killed Van Dorn’s forces slept on the field of battle, but next day they gave battle only to escape and then retreated southward toward the interior of Arkansas _ I was shocked when the news of McIntosh’s death was recd _ what sorrow this will bring to our friend Mrs. Keeney_ her only Southern Brother killed in a miserable war in which her feelings are on one side, and her husband & other brother on the other side_ She in a distant land, where her Southern friends receive nothing but curses loud and deep _ Oh how I pity her ___
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5. Monday, May 12, 1862 --- Mary Boykin Chestnut writes in her diary: In the naval battle the other day we had 25 guns in all. The enemy had 54 in the Cumberland, 44 in the St. Lawrence, besides a fleet of gunboats, filled with rifled cannon. Why not? They can have as many as they please. "No pent-up Utica contracts their powers;" the whole boundless world being theirs to recruit in. Ours is only this one little spot of ground—the blockade, or stockade, which hems us in with only the sky open to us, and for all that, how tender-footed and cautious they are as they draw near.
Floyd and Pillow are suspended from their commands because of Fort Donelson. The people of Tennessee demand a like fate for Albert Sidney Johnston. They say he is stupid. Can human folly go further than this Tennessee madness?
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6. Monday, May 12, 1862 --- An exchange of letters between the chief engineer of Gen. McClellan (who is in the midst of ferrying his army down to Ft. Monroe at the tip of the James Peninsula for his big push to Richmond) and Asst. Sec. of the Navy Gustavus Fox reveals the general’s extreme anxiety about the CSS Virginia (Merrimac) and it threat to his sea-borne operation: FAIRFAX COURT-HOUSE, March 12, 1862.　G. V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy: The possibility of the Merrimac appearing again paralyzes the movements of this army by whatever route is adopted. How long a time would it require to complete the vessel built at Mystic River, working night and day? How long would Stevens require to finish his vessel, so far as to enable her to contend with the Merrimac? If she is uninjured, of course no precaution would avail, and the Monitor must be the sole reliance. But if injured so as to require considerable repairs, these things are important to be considered . The General would desire any suggestion of your own on this subject. By order of Major-General McClellan: J. G. BARNARD, Chief Engineer.
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7. Monday, May 12, 1862 --- Mr Fox’s answer reveals also the uncertainty of the Navy Department concerning the ability of the USS Monitor to keep the Virginia bottled up in Norfolk: NAVY DEPARTMENT, March 13, 1862. Major General GEORGE B. McCLELLAN, Fairfax Court-House.
The Monitor is more than a match for the Merrimac, but she might be disabled in the next encounter. I cannot advise so great dependence upon her. Burnside and Goldsborough are very strong for the Chowan River route to Norfolk, and I brought up maps, explanation, &c., to show you. It turns everything, and is only 278 miles to Norfolk by two good roads. Burnside will have New Berne this week. The Monitor may, and I think will, destroy the Merrimac in the next fight; but this is hope-not certainty. The Merrimac must dock for repairs.
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8. Monday, May 12, 1862 --- Senator Morrill of Maine, in the U.S. Senate, proposes hearing "(S.No. 108) for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia." First to speak is Sen. Davis of Kentucky (a slave state yet loyal), who proposes: "That all persons liberated under this act shall be colonized out of the limits of the United States and the sum of $100,000 from the Treasury will be used for this purpose." Sen. Davis argues this: The liberation of the slaves in this District, or in any State, will be just equivalent to settling them in the country where they live; and whenever the policy is inaugurated, it will inevitably and immediately introduce a war of extermination between the two races.
Here there are a great many vagabond negroes in a state of slavery in this city. They are now idle and comparatively worthless; and whenever they are liberated they become greatly more so. A negro's idea of freedom is freedom from work. After they are liberated they become lazy, indolent, thievish vagabonds, Men may hug their delusions, but these are facts heretofore, and they will remain facts in the future. I know this just as well as I know that these gentlemen around me belong to the Caucasian race.
The negroes that are now liberated, and that remain in the city, will become a sore and a burden and a charge upon the white population. They will be criminals; they will become paupers, and the power that would liberate them ought to relieve the white population of their presence. . . . If at the time you commenced this war, you had announced as the national policy that was to prevail the measures and visionary schemes and ideas of some gentlemen on this floor, you should not have had a solitary man from the slave States to support you. You will unite the slave States by this conduct as one man, one woman, to resist your deadly policy.
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9. Tuesday, May 12, 1863 --- Union Artilleryman Jenkin Lloyd Jones, of the Wisconsin Artillery, notes in his journal his own impressions of the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi: Raymond, Tuesday, May 12. Awoke at the usual hour, hitched up at daylight and took up the line of march. Travelled slowly, stopping frequently until about 12 M. When we neared the firing, the report of which we could hear all day, we were ordered forward at double quick for two miles, and formed in line of battle immediately under the brow of the hill. But the work was done by Logan’s Division. The firing gradually ceased and at 4 P. M. all was calm and still after the leaden storm, and the heroes were allowed to recite the startling events of the morning. They commenced driving the enemy at sunrise and about 10 A. M. they met them in superior force. The 1st Brigade suffered the worst. The 20th Ill. and 31st Iowa losing more men than in the five previous engagements, Shiloh and Corinth included. Many were severely wounded. Took about 50 or sixty prisoners.
6 P. M. we limbered to the front and marched into Raymond at double quick. It was dark before we got in, and the dust was so thick that I could not see the lead-rider. The howitzers were posted on the entrance of the Jackson road in the public square, and stood picket. The horses which had been all day without water or feed, obliged to stand in the harness hitched up. Drivers lying by their teams.
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10. Tuesday, May 12, 1863: The Richmond Daily Dispatch publishes an elegaic editorial on the death of Gen. Jackson: Words have no power to express the emotion which the death of Jackson has aroused in the public mind. The heart of our whole people bleeds over the fallen hero, whom they loved so well because he so loved their cause, and vindicated it, not only with vast energy and courage, but with the most complete self-abnegation, simplicity, and single-mindedness. There was such an entire absence of pretension, vanity, ambition, and self in every shape about Gen. Jackson, that he had become a popular idol. The affections of every house-hold in the nation were twined about this great and unselfish warrior, who, two years ago, was an unknown man! He has fallen, and a nation weeps, but not as those without hope. No grave more glorious can a soldier ask than the lap of victory; no future brighter than that which awaits one who united with the soldier the saint!
Nor is the loss to his country, great as it is, irreparable. No doubt the puerile Yankee will be encouraged to believe that, now that Jackson is dead, the subjugation of the South is certain. Let them cross the Rappahannock again, and the delusion will be dispelled. The veterans of Jackson's corps, the men whom he led and loved, will show at the first opportunity whether or not they are capable of avenging his death. . . . At the head of our armies is still the great Commander-in-Chief, whose masterly combinations Jackson assisted to execute with unsurpassed vigor and success. Around him are clustered a group of such men as Longstreet, Stuart, Hill, and others, and, no doubt, not a few in the ranks, (for this war has been the best kind of military school,) who will yet achieve a renown fully equal to that of the departed hero. . . . Only let us cease to idolize man, and put our trust in that Providence which Jackson so constantly and reverently acknowledged as the hope and sheet anchor of our cause.
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11. Tuesday, May 12, 1863 --- Mrs. Judith White McGuire, of Richmond, writes in her journal of her feelings over Stonewall Jackson’s death: “The good, the great, the glorious Stonewall Jackson is numbered with the dead! Humanly speaking, we cannot do without him; but the same God who raised him up, took him from us, and He who has so miraculously prospered our cause, can lead us on without him. Perhaps we have trusted too much to an arm of flesh; for he was the nation’s idol. His soldiers almost worshipped him, and it may be that God has therefore removed him. We bow in meek submission to the great Ruler of events. May his blessed example be followed by officers and men, even to the gates of heaven!”
We wonder—does she mean that all of the rest of the Confederate Army should likewise seek death in battle?
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12. Tuesday, May 12, 1863 --- George Templeton Strong, of New York City, writes in his journal of the war news, revealing how little the Northern populace knew, even yet, of the results of Chancellorsville: Van Dorn’s death is established. He was shot by some other gentleman for certain liberties with the other gentleman’s wife, a fit conclusion to a life of scoundrelism. It is also established that Stonewall Jackson lost an arm at Chancellorsville. Hooker’s advance and Lee’s retreat are not confirmed.
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13. Thursday, May 12, 1864 --- Gen. Butler begins to push his columns out of Bermuda Hundred again, turning north along the west bank of the James River, striking toward the Confederate fortifications at Drewry’s Bluff, the last defensive spot that can stop a Union Navy incursion up to Richmond.
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14. Thursday, May 12, 1864 --- George Michael Neese, of the Confederate artillery, writes in his journal his account of what he saw and heard in the day’s battle: After we were firing about an hour a shell from the Yankee battery exploded right in front of my gun, and I saw a good-sized fragment that was whizzing fearfully and searching for something to kill. It came right at me as though I was its sure game, but I quickly jumped across the trail of my gun in order to clear the path for the little whirling death machine that was after me and was ready to call me its own dear Rebel. It passed me with a shrill snappish ping, and with a thud it ripped up the ground just in rear of where I had been standing; if I had not seen it coming and quickly jumped out of its path it would have struck me square in front just below the breast, which would have undoubtedly labeled me for transportation to the silent city. But a miss is as good as a mile, and when the fragment that was courting familiarity had passed over me I jumped back to my place at the gun, and the very next shell I fired struck and exploded a limber chest in the Yankee battery; immediately after I fired I saw a dense telltale column of smoke shoot up in the air from the enemy’s position, and then I knew that my shell had done some ugly work among the ammunition boxes of our brethren in blue.
We had no way of ascertaining the extent of damage that the explosion scattered around, but it must have been considerable, as it silenced the Yankee battery for the remainder of the evening; if they were satisfied to wind up our little act in the great tragedy by ringing down the curtain for a little explosion I am sure that I had enough, and was willing and glad to quit.
After the firing ceased we held our position until nearly dusk, and when we left the field the Yankee battery was still in the breastwork from which it fired at us this afternoon — until we planted a young volcano among their ammunition chests.
During the battle I saw a Yankee shell explode in front of one of our batteries. The butt end of the shell struck one of the drivers in the breast and went through him; when it struck him he jumped up about a foot from the saddle, then fell to the ground stretched out in full length, and never struggled.
The battle-field of Spottsylvania Court House is undulating and diversified by hills and hollows, woods and fields, brushwood and thicket. It rained nearly all day, and sometimes when the rain poured down the hardest and almost in torrents the musketry was heaviest. It looked as if Heaven were trying to wash up the blood as fast as the civilized barbarians were spilling it.
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15. Thursday, May 12, 1864 --- Private Daniel Holt of Mississippi writes of his experience in the battles at the Bloody Angle, and of the inhumane horror of it: We were in the V-shaped salient that had traverses thrown up to prevent an enfilading fire. The line was mended, and we [had to] keep it mended. Soon the Yanks made a determined charge with fixed bayonets, but the mud fought for us as the “stars were against Sisera, and for Israel.” The breastwork was in a bog, and to make a charge in such a place against a line of fierce men close up, who have no idea of giving way, was more than those gallant Yanks could do.
Many of them were shot dead and sank down on the breastworks without pulling their feet out of the mud. Many others plunged forward when they were shot and fell headlong into the trench among us. Between charges we cleared the trench of dead and wounded and loaded all the guns we could get hold of for the next charge. I was shooting seven guns myself. We stacked them up against the breastwork with the butts on the trench, and when the Yanks came, we picked them up one by one and fired and sent them down again. Many times we could not put the gun to our shoulder by reason of the closeness of the enemy, so we shot from the hip.
All the time a drizzling rain was falling. The blood shed by the dead and wounded in the trench mixed with the mud and water. It became more than shoe deep, and soon it was smeared all over our clothes. We could hardly tell one another apart.
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16. Friday, May 12, 1865: The last significant fighting of the Civil War takes place at the Palmito Ranch, Texas along the Rio Grande between Col. Theodore Barrett and John S. "RIP" Ford.
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17. Friday, May 12, 1865: The Battle of Palmito Ranch [May 12-13, 1865] Since March 1865, a gentleman’s agreement precluded fighting between Union and Confederate forces on the Rio Grande. In spite of this agreement, Col. Theodore H. Barrett, commanding forces at Brazos Santiago, Texas, dispatched an expedition, composed of 250 men of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment and 50 men of the 2nd Texas Cavalry Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. David Branson, to the mainland, on May 11, 1865, to attack reported Rebel outposts and camps. Prohibited by foul weather from crossing to Point Isabel as instructed, the expedition crossed to Boca Chica much later. At 2:00 am, on May 12, the expeditionary force surrounded the Rebel outpost at White’s Ranch, but found no one there. Exhausted, having been up most of the night, Branson secreted his command in a thicket and among weeds on the banks of the Rio Grande and allowed his men to sleep. Around 8:30 am, people on the Mexican side of the river informed the Rebels of the Federals’ whereabouts. Branson promptly led his men off to attack a Confederate camp at Palmito Ranch. After much skirmishing along the way, the Federals attacked the camp and scattered the Confederates. Branson and his men remained at the site to feed themselves and their horses but, at 3:00 pm, a sizable Confederate force appeared, influencing the Federals to retire to White’s Ranch. He sent word of his predicament to Barrett, who reinforced Branson at daybreak, on the 13th, with 200 men of the 34th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. The augmented force, now commanded by Barrett, started out towards Palmito Ranch, skirmishing most of the way. At Palmito Ranch, they destroyed the rest of the supplies not torched the day before and continued on. A few miles forward, they became involved in a sharp firefight. After the fighting stopped, Barrett led his force back to a bluff at Tulosa on the river where the men could prepare dinner and camp for the night. At 4:00 pm, a large Confederate cavalry force, commanded by Col. John S. “Rip” Ford, approached, and the Federals formed a battle line. The Rebels hammered the Union line with artillery. To preclude an enemy flanking movement, Barrett ordered a retreat. The retreat was orderly and skirmishers held the Rebels at a respectable distance. Returning to Boca Chica at 8:00 pm, the men embarked at 4:00 am, on the 14th.
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19. Friday, May 12, 1865: Major General O. O. Howard is appointed by President Andrew Johnson to become head of the Freedman's Bureau.
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A Tuesday, May 12, 1863: Battle of Raymond, Mississippi. A Confederate brigade under John Gregg attacks a Union division under Major General John Logan in the town of Raymond, between Vicksburg and Jackson.
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A+ Tuesday, May 12, 1863 --- Battle of Raymond, Mississippi: As part of Grant’s campaign in Mississippi, Gen. James McPherson pushes his troops as they appear before the town or Raymond before the Confederates expect them. Gen. John Gregg of the Confederate army is there to greet the Federal advance with a division of Rebel infantry, almost 5,000 men, with artillery. McPherson sends Gen. John "Black Jack" Logan forward with his division, and Logan deploys, at first, a single brigade to probe the Rebel line. Gregg assumes that a brigade is all he has to deal with, and orders his line forward. But he finds that Logan has deployed his entire division, with a lot of artillery. The Federals overlap the Confederate line, and Gregg’s line is smashed. The Rebels retreat, leaving the road to Jackson open, and tempting the Yankees with the capture of the two nearby railroads, that meet at Jackson. Grant decides to turn the bulk of his force toward Jackson.
Losses: Killed Wounded Captured/Missing Total
U.S. 68 341 37 446
C.S. 100 305 415 820
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B Thursday, May 12, 1864 --- Maj. Gen. JEB Stuart dies today from his wounds. He is only 31 years old, and Lee’s most trusted commander of cavalry.
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B+ Thursday, May 12, 1864: But it was too late. The sun was going down and the battle was ending as a strategic victory for the Federals. All the Confederates could do was escort CSA Major General James Ewell Brown [J.E.B.] Stuart [USMA, West Point class of 1854] from the field. The noise and carnage on every side had rendered Stuart’s horse unmanageable, so Dorsey helped the general to the ground, placed him against the base of a tree, rounded up another horse, and, with the assistance of comrades, helped him remount. Holding the suffering Stuart in the saddle, Dorsey and the others helped him to the rear. En route, an increasing number of riders passed them at breakneck speed. The sight so overwhelmed Stuart that he called out in an anguished voice, ‘Go back! go back! and do your duty as I have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back! go back! I had rather die than be whipped.’
About half a mile behind the front, Confederates placed Stuart in an ambulance, which he shared with Reid Venable and a second aide, Lieutenant Walter Hullihen. Soon afterward, Fitz Lee and Stuart’s medical director, Major John B. Fontaine, arrived. Stuart formally passed his command to an ashen-faced Fitz Lee, and then Doctor Fontaine turned Stuart onto his side and gently probed the wound. During or immediately after the procedure, Stuart, fearing he had taken on the death-pallor he had observed on the countenance of so many badly wounded subordinates, asked Venable and Hullihen how he looked ‘in the face.’ Hesitating only slightly, both aides pronounced him free of the pallor. Stuart was silent for a moment and then remarked, ‘Well, I don’t know how this will turn out; but if it is God’s will that I shall die I am ready.’ At one point Fontaine suggested that Stuart would benefit from an alcoholic stimulant. At first Stuart, a lifetime teetotaler, refused, but at Venable’s strong urging, he relented.
It was indeed God’s will that Stuart should die, and soon. Fontaine’s original diagnosis — that Huff’s bullet had severed blood vessels and perforated Stuart’s intestines, a fatal condition — was later confirmed via more thorough examination by other surgeons. Detouring around Sheridan’s roadblock on the Brook Turnpike, the ambulance lurched along, slowly and painfully carrying Stuart to Richmond, the sounds of battle growing ever fainter. Early on May 12, Stuart was finally placed in bed at the Grace Street home of his brother-in-law Dr. Charles Brewer. There he lay, often in great pain, as doctors tried unsuccessfully to stop the internal hemorrhaging. In the distance he could hear the sounds of renewed combat as Sheridan’s raiders struggled to cross the James River northeast of the city against spirited opposition from Stuart’s appointed successor, Fitz Lee. Considering his primary mission fulfilled at Yellow Tavern, Sheridan had decided against a direct attack on Richmond. Then he was content to head south to refit in preparation for a triumphal return to the Army of the Potomac.
Death from peritonitis overtook Stuart at 7:40 p.m., four hours before his hastily summoned wife could reach his side. By then Stuart had disposed of his official papers and personal effects, had led his attendants in the singing of hymns, and had informed a stream of sorrowing visitors, including President Jefferson Davis, that he was willing to die ‘if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty.’ All he addressed in this way assured him that he had done so, nobly and well.
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Thursday, May 12, 1864: Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia [May 8-19, 1864]
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Thursday, May 12, 1864 The Battle of Spotsylvania: By May 12, the Confederates had established a long line of earthworks, which included a huge half-mile bulge in the Confederate line called the Muleshoe Salient. Basing his plan off of Upton's attack, Grant massed 20,000 men of the Second Corps opposite the tip of the Muleshoe. Lee noted the Federal movement, but mistakenly believing Grant that was preparing to withdraw, removed his artillery from the salient. Thus, when Hancock's men advanced on the morning of May 12, they broke through the Confederate line that was without artillery. After the initial breakthrough, however, Lee shifted reinforcements into the salient just as Grant hurled more troops at the Confederate works. Fighting devolved into a point-blank slugfest—amid a torrential downpour—which lasted for 22 hours and claimed roughly 17,000 lives.
The stubborn stand by Confederate troops at the Bloody Angle gave Lee the time he needed to construct a new line of earthworks across the base of the Muleshoe Salient. The Army of the Potomac, exhausted from its attacks on the Angle, did not test the new line—at least, not right away. Instead, Grant slid his army to the left. When Union troops finally moved forward toward this position early on May 18, they were met by the massed artillery fire and easily repulsed. Stymied but undaunted, Grant called off the attack and resumed shifting his troops to the left. The campaign of maneuver would continue.
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Thursday, May 12, 1864 The Battle of Spotsylvania: Near midnight, of the 11th-12th of May, Johnson discovered, through the dense foggy mist then prevailing, that the Federal troops were massing in his front, and asked General Ewell to have the supporting artillery returned. Not fully realizing the importance of time under the existing conditions, Ewell gave orders, not for the immediate return of the guns, but that they should be returned at daybreak of the 12th. Before that time arrived, Hancock's superb corps, in solid mass, rushed upon the apex of the salient, expecting to carry it by assault. Johnson's command, a mere remnant of the division that had stormed Culp's hill, at Gettysburg, was on the alert and met this attack bravely; but musketry alone was not sufficient to drive back Hancock's many, massed battalions, which swarmed over the log breastworks and captured Johnson and 2,800 of his men. Just then, the batteries that had been ordered back came forward at a gallop, but only in time to fall into Hancock's hands and add their twenty cannon to his captures.
Flushed with victory, the Federal columns prepared to continue their assault, by dashing forward, through the salient, to the southward; but Lane's brigade, on Ewell's right, which had not been involved in the capture, as had Steuart's on its left, faced about, and, pouring a rapid and well-directed fire upon Hancock's advancing left flank, forced it to recoil. Promptly forming his men across the base of the salient, and taking direction from the noise of the advancing fire of the Federals, Gordon made ready to go forward and meet and drive back the Federal onset. At this juncture, Lee, roused from his quarters in the rear of the salient, by the mighty roar of the conflict in progress, came riding rapidly to Gordon's line and quietly took position to lead it forward. Gordon, in a tone clear, but not loud, spoke out: "This is no place for General Lee." His men caught the words and instantly shouted, "General Lee to the rear," while Gordon, his mobile face showing the incarnation of heroic daring, fairly shouted to General Lee: "These men are Georgians and Virginians. They have never failed you; they will not fail you now." Just then a veteran stepped from the ranks, and seizing his bridle turned "Traveler" backward, and again the imperative order came from his soldiers: "Lee to the rear," and as he obeyed, Gordon's men rushed forward to death and to victory.
The steady roar of the battle, which had been continuous since half past 4 of the morning, from the dawning of the day, now swelled in volume as Gordon met Hancock in the pine thickets embraced within the salient. The Federal left was soon thrust back and Gordon held the works on the east. Ewell hurried forward Ramseur's brigade, which had occupied the extreme left of the salient, in attack upon Hancock's right; while from Early's command, the Third corps, came the brigades of McGowan and Harris, following up the advance of Gordon and Ramseur. Lee, remaining where Gordon had left him, again rode forward to lead Harris' Mississippians, who, seeing this, in turn shouted: "Lee to the rear," as they followed up Ramseur's attack on Hancock's right.
These rapid combinations and charges of Lee's men soon drove Hancock outside the salient, and only left him in possession of the outer trenches at its apex and along its northern front. Two divisions, from the Sixth corps, were hurried forward to support Grant's line along the northern and northwestern side of the salient. These engaged in combat with the brigades of Harris' Mississippians, McGowan's South Carolinians and Ramseur's North Carolinians, and from opposite sides of these log breastworks, a bloody struggle continued from early morning until late afternoon, with unflinching desperation on either side, fairly filling the trenches and piling their borders, on each side, with the slain and the wounded, and giving to this portion of the famous salient the name of "the Bloody Angle."
Grant continued to hurl division after division and corps after corps; in fierce and continuing attack, upon every portion of Lee's line. The Fifth and part of the Sixth corps were charging his left, while Burnside, with another corps, was charging his right. A division of the Fifth corps was added to Hancock's attack in the center. Lee had not another man to spare, but the few hardy veterans that sustained the keystone of this arch of defense, held it with a desperate and unyielding courage unsurpassed in the annals of human conflicts.
The Federal engineers had, by careful triangulations, mapped the great salient and, guided by this information, batteries were so placed, in all available positions, as to bring cross-fires to bear upon its defenders. Big mortars were placed in position that dropped their heavy shells into the Confederate lines. Cannon were dragged to the front, and their muzzles thrust through or across the Confederate log intrenchments, and fired upon Lee's three brigades of heroes, who, unhesitatingly, stood to their assigned duty. Infantrymen, from opposite sides of the works, climbed up and fired into the faces of their opponents; they grappled one another and attempted to drag each other across the breastworks; bayonet thrusts were made through crevices; the continuous musketry fire cut off large trees standing in the line of the works; the dead and the dying had to be flung to the rear to give room for the living, fighting ones, in the trenches; and, to add to the horrors of the combat, a cold, heavy rain set in and partly filled the trenches, where the combatants stood, until they seemed to fairly run with blood.
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Thursday, May 12, 1864 --- Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia [May 8-21, 1864] Day 5: At about 4:35 AM, Hancock’s troops, three divisions under Birney, Mott, and Gibbon, in that order, advance in a column of divisions over the open ground before the Mule Shoe. Barlow’s somewhat battered division advances also, on the left flank of the other column. Hancock’s column clambers over the earthworks and smashes into Jones’ brigade and nearly vaporizes it; they next hit Steuart’s brigade, decimating it and capturing Gen. Steuart himself.
The Federals then roll over the brigades of Monaghan and John Walker (the Stonewall Brigade), both of which are suddenly decimated: nearly every man either died where he stood or was captured. The Stonewall Brigade ceases to exist. Alleghany Johnson, the division commander, is also captured. Some of the Southern artillery has just been wheeled up when the Federal attack captures all 20 guns in the battalion. Blue-coated soldiers fill up the Mule Shoe, but the attacking regiments are somewhat disorganized, however. Hancock soon finds that he has 15,000 men crowded into the Mule Shoe, and no plan for how to exploit his break. The Federal impetus bogs down.
Soon, the Confederates gather their wits and begin to respond. Gen. Lee arrives, and finds that there is nothing between the Federal II Corps and the area behind his lines. Lee calls upon Gen. John B. Gordon to bring his division and move up to plug the gap. Gordon sends the brigade of Robert D. Johnston first, followed by Evans. Gen. Rodes sends a brigade to strike the west leg of the Mule Shoe, and Wright (VI Corps) sends in a division of Federals under Thomas Neill, who smash into the western face. In response, Gen. Mahone (C.S.) sends in two brigades to meet the VI Corps bluecoats. Wright then sends in David Russell’s division. Soon, here at the “Bloody Angle”, by 8:00 AM, rain begins falling in torrents again, and both armies find themselves on either side of the fortifications, a line of stacked logs, which is all that separates the combatants. The ground becomes slippery with rain and blood, and soldiers are stabbing their foes through the cracks between the logs, and they are passing loaded rifles up to the men at the wall, who fire without aiming over the tops. The struggle becomes a remorseless, bestial killing spree.
Wounded men slip and fall, and are trampled by their own comrades into the mud, and after a while the men are treading on bodies rather than earth. South Carolina veteran Berry Benson writes his memories of this part of the fight: “Where the lines overlapped, the men said they and the enemy both fired without showing their heads above the work, which was certain death. Guns were loaded, held up to the breastwork, depressed, and the trigger pulled with the thumb. One man told me he several times took in his hand the barrel of a gun pointing down on him, held it up till it was fired and then let it go.”
Meanwhile, Confederate engineers quickly throw up a new line of fortifications across the base of the salient, which is completed by the early hours of May 13.
At the same time, Burnside sends in Gen. Potter’s division to put pressure on the east face of the Mule Shoe. Lee sends a patchwork of several brigades to stop Potter. On the right flank, Grant orders Warren to push forward once again, at the costly Laurel Hill area, and attack the Rebel line there. Warren does so, but is repulsed with heavy losses.
As night falls, Lee leaves the salient in the hands of the Federals. The rain continues to fall. The Yankees suffer 9,000 casualties on the day, and the Confederates lose 8,000, but 2,000 of those as prisoners.
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D Friday, May 12, 1865: The 8 conspirators in the Lincoln assassination plead not guilty to the military court holding the trial; Lewis Powell, David Herold, Mary Surratt, Edman Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, George Atzerodt's, Dr. Samuel Mudd.
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D+ Friday, May 12, 1865: The Decision to Try the Conspirators Before a Military Commission: Secretary of War Edwin Stanton favored a quick military trial and execution. According to Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, who favored trial in a civilian court, Stanton "said it was intention that the criminals should be tried and executed before President Lincoln was buried." (Lincoln was buried on May 4, before the start of the conspiracy trial.) Edward Bates, Lincoln's former attorney general, was among those objecting to a military trial, believing such an approach to be unconstitutional. Understanding the use of a military commission to try civilians to be controversial, President Johnson requested Attorney General James Speed to prepare an opinion on the legality of such a trial. Not surprisingly, Speed concluded in his opinion that use of a military court would be proper. Speed reasoned that an attack on the commander-in-chief before the full cessation of the rebellion constituted an act of war against the United States, making the War Department the appropriate body to control the proceedings. While debates continued in the Johnson Administration as to how to proceed with the alleged conspirators, the prisoners were kept under close wraps at two locations. Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd first were jailed at the Old Capitol Prison, while the other six were imprisoned on the ironclad vessels Montauk and Saugus. Later, as their trial date approached, authorities confined prisoners to separate cells in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary. Four of the male prisoners (Herold, Powell, Spangler, and Atzerodt) were shackled to balls and chains, with their hands held in place by an inflexible iron bar. Most strikingly, from the time of their arrest until midway through their trial, all the prisoners except Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd--under orders from Secretary Stanton--were forced to wear canvas hoods that covered the entire head and face.
On May 1, 1865, President Johnson issued an order that the alleged conspirators be tried before a nine-person military commission. Some, such as former Attorney General Bates, complained bitterly: "If the offenders are done to death by that tribunal, however truly guilty, they will pass for martyrs with half the world."
The Military Commission convened for the first time on May 8 in a newly-created courtroom on the third floor of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington. The voting members of the Commission were Generals David Hunter (first officer), August Kautz, Albion Howe, James Ekin, David Clendenin, Lewis Wallace, Robert Foster, T. M. Harris, and Colonel C. H Tomkins. Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt served in the problematic dual roles of chief prosecutor and legal advisor to the Commission. John A. Bingham (later an influential member of Congress) served on the Commission as Special Judge Advocates and handled examination of witnesses and gave the government's summation. H. L. Burnett was the third member of the prosecution team.
On the evening of May 9, General John Hantranft visited each prisoner's cell to read the charges and specifications against them. Hantranft later wrote: "I had the hood [of each prisoner] removed, entered the cell alone with a lantern, delivered the copy, and allowed them time to read it, and in several instances, by request read the copy to them, before replacing the hood."
Testimony began in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial on May 12, just three days after the prisoners were first asked if they would like to have legal counsel. The rules of the Commission made the position of the defendants even more grave: conviction could come on a simple majority vote and a majority of two-thirds could impose the death sentence. Over the course of the next seven weeks, the Commission would hear from 371 witnesses. As the witnesses paraded to the stand, spectators lucky enough to get admission passes from Major General Hunter would move in and out of the nonchalant atmosphere of the courtroom.
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Friday, May 12, 1865: Major General O. O. Howard is appointed by President Andrew Johnson to become head of the Freedman's Bureau.
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The Bloody Angle Mayhem at Dawn: The Union Onslaught Pt 1 Spotsylvania 150th
Join park staff to follow the footsteps of the initial Union breakthrough on May 12, 1864
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnS3m7FbWpA
FYI SGT Tiffanie G. ]LTC Greg Henning LTC John Shaw SSG Franklin Briant LTC Trent Klug LTC Private RallyPoint Member Maj William W. 'Bill' Price 1SG Steven Imerman CSM Charles Hayden MSgt James Parker MSgt Private RallyPoint Member SPC Maurice Evans SFC Ralph E Kelley SSG Franklin Briant PO3 Edward Riddle MAJ Private RallyPoint Member SMSgt David A Asbury SSG Donald H "Don" Bates SSG Jeffrey Leake

The Bloody Angle Mayhem at Dawn: The Union Onslaught Pt 1 Spotsylvania 150th

Join park staff to follow the footsteps of the initial Union breakthrough on May 12, 1864

Response by SP5 Mark Kuzinski made May 13 at 2016 7:56 PM

2016-05-13T19:56:54-04:00

Good evening and thanks for the great read sir.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made May 13 at 2016 7:59 PM

2016-05-13T19:59:56-04:00

Still Spotsylvania. Grant can afford to lose a Regiment. Lee suffers with the loss of every company. It's not that Grant was a butcher but, a shortened brutal campaign is less costly than a lengthy drawn out war over many years.

Response by SSG Leo Bell made May 14 at 2016 6:00 AM

2016-05-14T06:00:56-04:00

Thanks for sharing LTC Stephen Ford. You know every one has heard about General Jeb Stuart in one story or another, or read about him.

Response by MSG Brad Sand made May 14 at 2016 7:21 PM

2016-05-14T19:21:14-04:00

I had to go with the loss of General Stuart...there had been more important general lost, but so the South had lost so many of their combat commanders, by this point of the war the loss of any well know leader was brutal to the South's ability to continue.