Thursday, May 8, 2014

OVERLAND CAMPAIGN 150TH: A Photo Tour

THE WILDERNESS

This mortuary cannon marks the location of Brigadier General Alexander Hays' death along the Brock Road.
"Lee to the rear!" marker in Widow Tapp's Field where on the morning of May 6, 1864, General Lee was ushered to
the rear by his oncoming Texas soldiers, a major turning point in the fighting along the Orange Plank Road.
Confederate artillery on the west end of Tapp Field.
Confederate entrenchments bisecting Tapp Field...the Orange Plank Road is along the far treeline.
Confederate earthworks north of the Orange Plank Road...Hancock's May 6 AM attack passed through these works
before his troops were eventually pushed back through here towards the Brock Road.
This monument marks the location of Brigadier General James Wadsworth's mortal wounding on May 6, 1864.

SPOTSYLVANIA

Laurel Hill...this is where major fighting at Spotsylvania began on May 8, 1864.
Looking up the steep northern slopes of Laurel Hill...the Brock Road runs along the crest.  On May 8, Samuel Crawford's Division made attacks against well positioned Confederates here.
"Lee's Final Line"....after the major fighting at the Bloody Angle and elsewhere on the Mule Shoe line, Lee consolidated his lines across directly across the rear of the bulge that formed the Mule Shoe salient.
Looking across the western works of the Mule Shoe towards the ruins of the Harrison House, which are located
amid the clump of trees on the hill in the left center of the photo.
Monument to General Stephen Dodson Ramseur's Brigade on the western face of the Mule Shoe...
it was here on May 12 that Ramseur re-stabilized a Confederate line that had been
shattered by heavy assaults from Hancock's Federal 2nd Corps.
Confederate entrenchments along the eastern part of the Mule Shoe.
Confederate entrenchments on the eastern edge of the Mule Shoe, just below the Bloody Angle.
Looking from the Bloody Angle in the direction from which Hancock's 2nd Corps made their massive
assault in the early hours of May 12, 1864.  They overwhelmed this part of the Confederate defenses.
Union monuments along the Bloody Angle, giving an idea of the close nature of the fighting across the earthworks.
Monument to the regiments of Upton's Charge on May 10
In this area on May 10, Emory Upton's men formed for their groundbreaking charge that helped to reformulate
battlefield tactics of the time.  
The dense woods of Spotsylvania County
Confederate Cemetery at Spotsylvania

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