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were several times seen planted on each side of the breastworks, simultaneously, and within a few feet of each other.
Lee's assaults were repulsed with dreadful carnage on both sides, and yet he persisted, notwithstanding rain fell heavily all the afternoon.
It was midnight before he ceased to fight, when he sullenly withdrew with his terribly-shattered and worn columns, after a combat of twenty hours, leaving
Hancock in possession of the works he had captured in the morning, and twenty guns.
So ended the
battle of Spottsylvania Court-House, one of the bloodiest of the war. It had been fought chiefly by infantry, and at short range, although artillery was freely used.
Probably there never was a battle in which so many bullets flew in a given space of time and distance.
When the
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Battle of Spottsylvania Court-House. |
writer visited the scene of strife, two years afterward,
full one-half of the trees of the wood, at a point where the fiercest struggle ensued, within the salient of the
Confederate works, were dead, and nearly all the others were scarred from the effect of musket-balls.
At the War Department, in the
National Capital, may now
be seen a portion of the trunk of a large oak-tree, which was cut in two by bullets alone.
Its appearance is given in the annexed engraving.
1
On the morning of the 13th,
the
Confederates were behind an inner and shorter line of intrenchments,
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Bullet-severed Oak. |
immediately in front of
Hancock.
Their position seemed as invulnerable as ever, yet they had lost much ground since the struggle began.
Notwithstanding the Army of the Potomac had lost nearly thirty thousand men in the space of eight days,
2 the commander saw much encouragement in the situation, and on that morning
