The only thing holding together the two wings of the Confederate army were the soldiers of Gordon’s reserve division, and Gordon frantically began shifting troops to counter the assault. Lee, too, had ridden to the sound of the firing. The Confederate commander, who liked to get up early and ride to the front lines, was already on horseback when he heard the attack begin. Gordon encountered Lee, briefed him, and then turned away, expecting Lee to go to the rear. Instead, Lee began riding toward the fighting. Gordon and his troops pleaded with Lee to get out of danger, and a Virginia sergeant grabbed the bridle of Lee’s horse, Traveller, and led Lee to the rear. Gordon then raced to organize brigade-sized counterattacks.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Hancock now faced a replay of Upton’s problem from two days earlier. Hancock’s II Corps had smashed through the Confederate entrenchments, but in the confined space his units got all tangled up. Gordon’s counterattack slammed into the confused Federals and began pushing them back toward the eastern side of the Muleshoe.

Grant had made plans to reinforce Hancock, and at 6 a.m. the 15,000 men of Brig. Gen. Horatio Wright’s VI Corps launched their attack about 300 yards west of Hancock’s right. By 6:30 the first of these troops—the three regiments of Colonel Oliver Edwards—moved along the northwestern side of the captured Confederate trenches where the earthworks made an angle. Over the next two hours as a downpour drenched the field, more troops, including Upton’s Brigade, moved in. In this 200-yard-wide stretch, at what the troops called “the Bloody Angle,” all hell broke loose as Union and Confederate soldiers standing only a few feet apart shot, bludgeoned and bayoneted one another beyond recognition. Countless men were trampled in the mud four and five deep. A hornet’s nest of musket fire even cut down an 18-inch-diameter tree trunk. The fighting raged for nearly 20 hours.

With two of his four corps furiously engaged, Grant counted on support from his other two corps to win the battle. He had ordered attacks by the V Corps and the X Corps. Both made half-hearted efforts that provided their comrades with little help. Meanwhile, Grant and Lee poured troops into the Bloody Angle, neither giving ground throughout the day and into the night. Around midnight Lee quietly ordered a Confederate withdrawal to new lines about a half-mile south of the Muleshoe, and by 3 a.m. the fighting ended. Exhausted soldiers on both sides lay down in the mud and slept.

Curtis D. Crockett, who has written previously for America’s Civil War, resides in Indian Trail, North Carolina.

This article by Curtis D. Crockett was originally published in the January 2008 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.For more great articles be sure to subscribe to America’s Civil War magazine today!

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to