Spotsylvania Campaign
May 12, 1864. About 4:30 a.m. Hancock's Federal II Corps, in one of the greatest surprise attacks of the War, struck Ewell's Confederate Corps entrenched here. Advancing in a solid rectangular mass, the Federal troops overwhelmed the defenders. The Confederates lost 20 cannon, upwards of 30 battle flags, several thousand small arms, and nearly all of Gen. Edward Johnson's Division of 3,500 men, including Johnson himself and Gen. George H. Steuart. The Confederate artillery, ordered back to this line after an ill-advised shift, had arrived just in time to be captured without firing. Hancock's mass formation, so successful here against infantry, might have withered under cannon fire.
Marker can be reached from Gordon Drive, on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
