{"id":2584,"date":"2010-07-01T09:48:02","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T14:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=2584"},"modified":"2010-07-21T21:39:23","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T02:39:23","slug":"battle-of-spotsylvania-may-8-21-1864","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/07\/01\/battle-of-spotsylvania-may-8-21-1864\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of Spotsylvania, May 8-21, 1864"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

The Battle of Spotsylvania took place from May 8-21, 1864 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia following the Battle of the Wilderness<\/a>.\u00a0 Union General Ulysses S. Grant <\/a> and his forces attacked Confederate General Robert E. Lee<\/a> during Grant\u2019s attempt to advance to Richmond<\/a>.\u00a0 Although the fighting was fierce the Confederate Army was unable to stop the progress of the Union troops as Grant was able to continue moving towards Richmond on May 21.\u00a0 The National Park Service\u2019s website provides an overview <\/a>of the battle as well as links to a virtual tour <\/a>of the battleground.\u00a0 Also included is information for visiting the battlefield which may be valuable for teachers looking to plan a field trip<\/a> to the area.\u00a0 The Civil War Preservation Trust\u2019s website has historical maps<\/a> as well as a collection of photographs <\/a>with different markers and monuments located in the battlegrounds.\u00a0 Gordon C. Rhea commented on the significance of the battle in his book The Battles for Spotsylvania Courthouse and the Road to Yellow Tavern<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cGrant\u2019s simple message carried the matter-of-fact assurance that the general meant to stay the course.\u00a0 He was holding true to his clear vision of the road to victory.\u00a0 The Wilderness had sorely tested his resolve, and after two days of bitter combat he was forced to concede that Lee had maneuvered him to impasse.\u00a0 But he wisely recognized that the Wilderness was just a tactical reverse, not the end of the campaign.\u00a0 Grant\u2019s strategic objective of destroying Lee\u2019s army remained unchanged.\u00a0 His task now was to find another way to bring the wily Virginian to battle on terms more favorable to the Federals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another resource which may be useful is The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies<\/a><\/em> which provides several letters of correspondence between different commanding officers during the Battle of Spotsylvania.\u00a0 James McPherson\u2019s Battle Cry of Freedom<\/a><\/em>, available in limited view on Google Books, gives another overview of the battle and its participants.\u00a0\u00a0 Also, the Library of Congress’s\u00a0collection of Lincoln Papers\u00a0provides a few different original letters\u00a0along with transcriptions regarding the battle including one<\/a> from General Grant to President Abraham Lincoln<\/a> that gives Grant\u2019s personal account of the Union Army\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Battle of Spotsylvania took place from May 8-21, 1864 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia following the Battle of the Wilderness.\u00a0 Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his forces attacked Confederate General Robert E. Lee during Grant\u2019s attempt to advance to Richmond.\u00a0 Although the fighting was fierce the Confederate Army was unable to stop the progress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,156,172,12,47],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-2584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-images","category-letters-diaries","category-maps","category-places-to-visit","tag-battles-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2584"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}