May 10, 1864---The Battle of The Muleshoe

MAY 10, 1864:     

       

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (Day Three) (The Battle of The Muleshoe): 

Near dusk, Colonel Emory Upton, U.S.A. leads 5,000 men against the Confederate redoubt atop Laurel Hill. 

The weak spot of Laurel Hill is a bulge in the line called “The Muleshoe,” and the 24-year old veteran commander is convinced he can hammer The Muleshoe flat. 

History has been kind to Upton. He has commanded men at Antietam, at Fredericksburg, at the Seven Days Battles, and at Rappahannock Station, where he led a mass of men as a human battering ram, a kind of 19th Century blitzkrieg, against Rebel positions --- and overwhelmed the enemy. 

Upton believes he can do it again. General Grant needs him to do it. After the wearing Battle of The Wilderness and three days into the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Grant is becoming increasingly aware of just how tenacious Robert E. Lee’s soldiery is. A lightning blow may be just the thing to throw them into confusion. 

Historians are still uncertain as to the wisdom of Upton’s attack. His men are disorganized and tired, and many of them have not even reloaded their weapons since their last assault. 

But more profound are the technological shortcomings of the day. For the massed attack to succeed on a very large scale, as it must at The Muleshoe, each unit must advance in sequence and at top speed. 

Upton realized that the Confederates were well dug in with bristling obstacles and earthworks, but he was certain that his infantry could make the charge --- a 200 yard run across open ground and up the flank of the hill, not much different, but reassuringly much shorter, than Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. 

The results of Upton’s Charge are little better. As soon as the Federal line begins to move it becomes enmeshed in the obstacles, and Confederate men rise out of the earthworks to blast them at short range. 

It was not long before the Union troops were spent. Although all 12 attacking Union regiments managed to penetrate the line of The Muleshoe, the close-quarter combat they faced shattered the line. 

Unfortunately, the reserves that were to have supported Upton’s breach of the Confederate line did so half-heartedly, and Upton was forced to withdraw. 

General Grant later recalled, “Upton had gained an important advantage, but a lack in others of the spirit and dash possessed by him lost it to us . . . I conferred the rank of Brig. Gen. upon Upton on the spot, and this act was confirmed by the President.”