Spottsylvania Courthouse

Spottsylvania Courthouse, a small village of Virginia, 55 miles N. by W. of Richmond, the scene of one of the most desperate and sanguinary battles of the civil war. On 10th May 1864, during the Wilderness campaign, Grant attacked Lee in his earthworks, and was repulsed with dreadful slaughter; yet on the next day he wrote to the secretary of war, 'I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer,' and on the 12th repeated the assault, when Hancock's corps carried and held the 'bloody angle' (see HANCOCK). The next morning Lee, unable to bear his share of the heavy losses, withdrew within an inner line of entrenchments, and on the 20th Grant, having failed to dislodge him, moved round his flank towards Richmond.