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What's Happening?
SPOTSYLVANIA
About Spotsylvania
After the Wilderness, Grant’s and Meade’s advance on Richmond by the left flank was stalled at Spotsylvania Court House on May 8. This two-week battle was a series of combats along the Spotsylvania front. The Union attack against the Bloody Angle at dawn, May 12-13, captured nearly a division of Lee’s army and came near to cutting the Confederate army in half. Confederate counterattacks plugged the gap, and fighting continued unabated for nearly 20 hours in what may well have been the most ferociously sustained combat of the Civil War.
Battlefield Ground Saved
40.1 acres
Po River - two tracts, 2001 & 2003
4.9 acres
Harris Farm & Monument
14.4 acres
5th Corps Brock Road Tract
73.3 acres
Myer's Hill
17.75 acres
Myer's Hill-II
Historical Significance
Po River I
20 acres 2001
On May 8th, 1864, the two armies maneuvered into position after departing the burning Wilderness. Over the next two weeks, there occurred a series of sharp battles including the fight at Laurel Hill.
Po River II
On May 9th, Hancock’s engineers constructed a pontoon bridge, west of Laurel Hill and the infantry began to cross in the late afternoon. Thus warned of the Federal movement, General Robert E. Lee redeployed troops.
Myer's Hill & Myers Hill II
While the 1864 battle of Spotsylvania Court House is best known for the May 12 fighting at the “Bloody Angle,” there was more to the battle than just the Mule Shoe Salient.
“Myer’s Hill is one of the most important pristine sites remaining to be preserved on the Spotsylvania Court House battlefield,” says award-winning historian Gordon Rhea, whose work has focused on the 1864 Overland Campaign, including Spotsylvania Court House. “It is imperative that this key location be saved to enable future generations to walk the ground and understand the momentous events that transpired there.”
Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has preserved more than 73.3 acres of this important property at a cost of more than $450,000.
In 2021, Rappahannock Plantation, LLC, has made a generous donation of approximately 17.75 acres of the Myer’s Hill Battlefield, The hallowed ground will also provide an important access and future interpretation point for the battlefield. This generous gift brings the total preserved land at Myer’s Hill to a little over 91 acres.
Harris Farm & Monument
4.87 acres 2004
The area known as the Harris Farm saw combat action on May 19, 1864 and became the last of the battles fought around Spotsylvania Court House.
5th Corps Brock Road Tract
14.403 acres 2018
The Fifth Corps Tract was used extensively by Union 5th Corps as a staging and rallying point during the initial May 8th attacks on Laurel Hill, as well as the subsequent assaults on May 10th and 12th. It continued to play an important role as an anchor for the Union right flank through May 14th, and was later probed by Confederate forces.
