'Horror of the melee': Stroll at Spotsylvania's Mule Shoe conjures epic scenes

(National Park Service map)

You likely have heard of the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania Court House. But did you know that scene of vicious combat was just one part of the Mule Shoe Salient, a bulge in the Confederate fortifications at the Virginia battlefield?

A few members of my family recently took a brief driving tour of the May 1864 site and I spent a few minutes walking paths at the Bloody Angle. It was a pretty, late-spring day and I worked up a bit of a sweat.

Line of earthworks near route of Upton advance

We got a quick orientation at the exhibit shelter on the beginning of the driving tour. The next stop recalled the May 9 innovative charge of Col. Emory Upton’s Union troops, a day after a failed attempt to dislodge Confederates from Laurel Hill. Upton’s fast-moving column breached the Rebel line briefly, but Lee’s troops began digging in.

Soon, thousands of men faced off around the Mule Shoe, which provided a tempting target for Federal commanders.

The photo above shows the area where Lee mistakenly removed artillery pieces when he thought Grant’s Yankees were withdrawing. It was a big mistake. Winfield Hancock’s Federals burst through on May 12 and Confederate columns rushed to hold the salient.

According to the Civil War Trust: “After the initial breakthrough … 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.”

Monument to 126th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

The 24-hour stubborn Rebel defense of the Bloody Angle, a 200-yard western stretch of the salient, bought time for Lee's engineers to construct a new line of earthworks to the rear. The exhausted men left the salient to their new positions, leaving a scene of unparalleled carnage.

Grant left the field a few days when an effort to move on this new position was rebuffed by massed artillery, according to the trust’s summary.

Spotsylvania, which followed the Wilderness, was the third bloodiest battle of the war, with a staggering 30,000 casualties (18,000 Union). It lasted nearly two weeks (May 8-21) and saw vicious hand-to-hand combat at times.

Look closely and you can make out raised fortification

The National Park Service, which maintains the site, calls this part of the Overland Campaign inconclusive. Grant continued his efforts to flank Lee’s army.

South Carolina and New Jersey monuments

Confederate troops rushed toward background to reinforce

Live blog: 150th anniversary of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House

(National Park Service photo)

The Civil War Picket listened today via C-SPAN 3 and the National Park Service to a ceremony marking the exact time on April 9, 1865, that Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met to finalize the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Their meeting took place at the McLean House at Appomattox Court House, Va. Here are updates from the event at the national historical park. (The Picket was not at the ceremony)

3:14 p.m.: Call for bells to be rung across America. Ceremony concludes and crowd slowly disperses to other activities at Appomattox.

3:08 p.m.: The descendant of a slave begins the bell-ringing, followed by a descendant of Ulysses S. Grant and then others.

3:06 p.m.: National Park Park Service officials prepare to play a bell to mark the 150th anniversary of Lee's surrender. Union officers walk out of the home onto the McLean porch.

3 p.m.: Grant and Lee ended their meeting at this time on April 9, 1865. John Hennessy of the National Park Service talks about all of the emotions present at Appomattox. (Lee actor leaves the building and walk down the stairs). The end of slavery was real and much reconstruction and reconciliation awaited, Hennessy tells the crowd. ("Auld Lang Syne" is played as Lee's horse is brought up. The general rides away.)

2:57 p.m.: There was a mixture of joy at war's end and mourning. Park Service historians talk about some of the soldiers who died near the end of the war. 

2:48 p.m.: University of Richmond President Edward Ayers says the South did not believe Reconstruction would be militarily enforced. They did not see Appomattox as the beginning of a more profound revolution in America: Enslaved people would become full citizens who could vote. People in the North, Ayers says, knew that freed people would have to have laws, education, ability to obtain property and vote. Grant, when he become president, saw suppression of blacks in the South as not representing the spirit of Appomattox.

2:42 p.m.: Ayers speaks of the Southerners' sincerity to their cause: Freedom, rights and independence. They would say they fought for home and rights. But the fight for slavery was the reality underneath, Ayers tells the crowd. 

2:38 p.m.: Historian Edward Ayers says Appomattox showed America at is best: The humility, restraint and generosity shown toward one another after four years of bloody war. "This story shows our best selves." Grant, Ayers said, helped create this version of the story. The Union commander allowed no salutes or unnecessary embarrassment of the Confederates. But Grant also criticized the cause for which his opponents fought. Ayers says this mixed message is one with which Americans wrestle.

2:35 p.m.: Noted Civil War historian and retiring president of the University of Richmond, Edward Ayers, gives remarks outside the Wilmer McLean House. (Union re-enactors march up to the home, to the beat of a drum)

2:30 p.m.: Recognition of descendant of Ely Parker (see below).

2:27 p.m.: Bigelow says his Confederate ancestor became a peacemaker after the Civil War.

2:22 p.m.: Dennis Bigelow, a descendant of  Charles Marshall, the Confederate officer who accompanied Lee to the McLean House, gives remarks. Marshall wrote of the courtesy given by Federal officers to the defeated men in gray.

2:18 p.m.: (More recounting of the surrender:) Grant orders end to celebratory gunfire, saying the Rebels were now fellow countrymen.

Ely Parker

2:13 p.m.: Lt. Col. Ely Parker, a Grant aide who was a Native American, wrote down final terms of the surrender. Lee tells Grant that he has no rations for his men or captives. Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, is present.

2:11 p.m.: Lee and Grant, meeting in the parlor, talk about meeting during the Mexican-American War and then begin discussing surrender terms. (More Union re-enactors ride up to the McLean House). The two generals go over terms previously detailed in a letter.

2:05 p.m.: More details on April 9, 1865, when Lee decided the fight was over. Patrick Schroeder of the NPS talks about Grant's meeting message being delivered to Lee, who was resting near an apple tree. Lee would not leave the surrender responsibility to a subordinate. Wilmer McLean had first offered a different building for the surrender, but then offered his own home. Lee, wearing a new uniform, arrived at the home about one half hour before Grant, who had ridden on muddy roads.

2 p.m.: National Park Service historian Frank O'Reilly describes the physical and leadership characteristics of Ulysses S. Grant. "He has the tenacity of a bulldog."

1:58 p.m.: Spectators outside of the McLean House are told of Robert E. Lee's military prowess during the Civil War that ended ultimately in defeat at Appomattox. "His was a mind that craved the initiative and he was most effective when he possessed it," Hennessy said.

1:54 p.m.: Wilmer McLean and family came to Appomattox in 1863, having moved with his family from the battlefield in Manassas, Va. They thought (incorrectly) they had escaped the war.

1:47 p.m.: NPS historian John Hennessy, standing outside the home, talks about that meeting between the two generals. The Liberty Bell and bells around the country will ring at 3:15 p.m. ET to remember the symbolic end of the war.

1:46 p.m.: The actor portraying U.S. Grant has a cigar, fittingly, clamped in his teeth as he rides up. He returns a salute. He enters the McLean House to meet with Lee, who arrived at about 1:30 p.m. on April 9, 1865.

1:43 p.m.: Union officers ride on horseback through the crowd toward the McLean House, one of the staff members carrying an American flag.

1:40 p.m.:  The U.S. Postal Service dedicates the final two stamps of the Civil War sesquicentennial series. One depicts the Battle of Five Forks and the other recalls the surrender at Appomattox.

1:32 p.m.: Park Superintendent Robin Snyder recalls diaries and letters from Civil War soldiers about the war's end. "They recall uncertainty, but also hope," she says. Snyder mentions coming equality for freed slaves. "Let us remember... that the hope of the moment often requires efforts of generations to realize."

1:30 p.m. The ceremony is underway.

1:28 p.m.: The actor portraying Robert E. Lee, in full formal dress, walks up the steps into the McLean House.

1:20 p.m.: Spectators are gathered under a cloudy sky around a white picket fence surrounding the McLean House in the historic Appomattox village. Living historians portraying Union officers are in the courtyard of the home. With them is a reproduction of Phil Sheridan's two-star headquarters flag. Lee will arrive at about 1:30 p.m. 

1:14 p.m.: The National Park Service has a livestream of music, informal talks and living histories leading up to the 1:30 event. Click link.

'Bells across the land': April 9 ringing will mark 150th anniversary of war's end

(NPS photo)

Communities are being asked to take part in a nationwide bell-ringing in April that will mark the 150^th anniversary of the symbolic end of the Civil War.

The National Park Service and Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in Virginia are inviting churches, temples, schools, city halls and other public institutions to take part in the commemoration at precisely 3:15 p.m. on April 9. Bells will ring for four minutes, each ring to mark one year of the war.

“We ask participants to ring bells across the nation as a gesture to mark the end of the bloody conflict in which more than 750,000 Americans perished,” the park service said in a press release this week. “Some communities may ring their bells in celebration of freedom or a restored Union, others as an expression of mourning and a moment of silence for the fallen. Sites may ring bells to mark the beginning of reconciliation and reconstruction, or as the next step in the continuing struggle for civil rights.”

The bells will ring first at 3 p.m. at Appomattox, to coincide with the historic meeting between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the McLean House in the small village in southwestern Virginia.

While Lee surrendered his army in Virgnia, fighting continued elsewhere across the South for more than a month, culminating with the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia.

Officials are encouraging those who take part to share how they observed it at #BellsAcrosstheLand2015.

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park and its friends group have many other sesquicentennial events scheduled for April 8 through April 12. See the schedule here. The park is looking for volunteers to assist in programming.