I've come to the Spotsylvania Court House Battlefield.
And right now I'm at the exhibit shelter where they have a number of very interesting displays
of what happened here at the battle. So this is the first stop,
and now I'll take the driving tour of
the battlefield. Stop number two on the battlefield tour is Upton's Road.
Well we're taking the same path that said on the marker
that Upton's men took. so it should be interesting.
Well I'm standing at the point where Upton formed his men up
so that he could attack the Confederates on their line just ahead of us. He's going
to be attacking Confederates in an entrenched position. This is going to be one bloody conflict.
The Union Army has formed up and now they have to go 200 yards out of the woods,
and into the direct line of fire of the Confederate trenches should be interesting.
The Union Army would have emerged from the woods just like we're doing now,
and see the trenches ahead of them, and know the fight was about to begin.
Now we have reached the Confederate trenches which can be seen along this area.
The Confederates would have had a good view of the Union soldiers coming across that field.
After Upton had an initial success capturing almost 900 some men. Then the Confederates
regrouped, and counter-attacked, and drove Upton's men back into the woods, and back to union lines.
I'm at stop number three. This is the bloody angle
trail. So I'm about to walk the trail and see what it has in store for us.
Grant sent 20,000 men across this field and attacked the Confederate line. This was one of
the bloodiest battles of the civil war, and during this battle Lee was trying to regroup his troops,
and form a new battle line, as Grant just poured men in. The fighting was hand-to-hand and ferocious.
On May 12th during this battle,
17,000 men were killed in one day, 22 hours of fighting on bloody angle.
The Park Service has built this bridge so you can walk over the Confederate trenches without harming them.
You can see the ruins of the trenches. They're kind of
small down that way as the earth has eroded away.
You've seen this spot.
I have a few things.
Well I'm standing out on the angle. The on the east side.
This is where some of the fiercest fighting took place at the Battle of Spotslvania Court House.
Here are the Confederate trenches and they built bridges over them so when you walk the trail,
you won't damage them. They have lots of great markers on this trail and I highly recommend
trying to hike the shorter path. The longer path would take a bit more, so I'm just going to do
the short path. Right now I'm looking out over the field where the Union soldiers charged this point.
The battle of the bloody angle was a terrible thing. That's where they came from.
Now I'm spinning around. There are the Confederate trenches. Let's go over the bridge,
back down the path.
Walking right over the Confederate trenches where the Union army would have swarmed their defenses.
Stop number four is the Harrison house site. Up that path is the Harrison house.
Stop number five is the McCoull house site.
Here in the ruins of the McCoull house, all you can see is the outline on the ground.
But we are standing in the middle of the Confederate position that the Union army attacked.
Down that road and up that hill is the Harrison house.
Sat on a hill, that could see the entire battle. Stop number six is the east face of the Salient.
Stop number seven is Heth salient.
Here General Henry Heth's Confederate defenders repulsed Burnside's attacks.
Stop number eight the Fredericksburg road this is the last stop on the battlefield tour and
Fredericksburg road became the lifeline of the Union Army allowing Grant to bring up supplies
and reinforcements. I hope you've enjoyed the Spotsylvania Court House Battlefield
tour, and enjoyed all the pictures and drawings from the Civil War. Please subscribe
to my channel and visit these other two videos. Thank you.