Virginia, Spotsylvania County, Livingston
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Before dawn on May 12, 1864, 20,000 Union troops of General Winfield Hancock's Second Corps slogged into position at the Brown House, one-half mile to your left, preparatory to making an attack on the Confederate-held Muleshoe Salient. Tired from marching all night, the troops threw themselves to the ground and were soon fast asleep despite a steady rain.
As dawn approached, officers quietly woke the men from their sleep and formed them into lines of battle. "There was something terribly weird in this massing of troops at this time of day, in the hooting of owls as the dark figures of men moved through the pines, in the sobbing of the wind through the wet trees," thought one soldier. Drenched to the skin, their teeth chattering with cold, the men stepped out. The most horrible day of fighting in American history was about to begin.
(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 1 photo, GPS coordinates, map.
Before dawn on May 12, 1864, 20,000 Union troops of General Winfield Hancock's Second Corps slogged into position at the Brown House, one-half mile to your left, preparatory to making an attack on the Confederate-held Muleshoe Salient. Tired from marching all night, the troops threw themselves to the ground and were soon fast asleep despite a steady rain.
As dawn approached, officers quietly woke the men from their sleep and formed them into lines of battle. "There was something terribly weird in this massing of troops at this time of day, in the hooting of owls as the dark figures of men moved through the pines, in the sobbing of the wind through the wet trees," thought one soldier. Drenched to the skin, their teeth chattering with cold, the men stepped out. The most horrible day of fighting in American history was about to begin.
(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 1 photo, GPS coordinates, map.
