Description
A painting illustrating an event at Laurel Hill during the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 8 1864.
The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House was the second major engagement in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, a major Union offensive to chase down Robert E. Lee, destroy his forces, and defeat the Confederacy. In an attempt to outflank the rebel forces, Grant orders the federal troops to head for Spotsylvania Court House.
On the early morning of May 8, believing Spotsylvania to be open for the taking, Union Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren advances, assuming that only cavalry blocked his path.
But instead of running into a small force of dismounted calvary, they were met by furious volleys from 2 infantry brigades of Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson’s First Corps, and were repulsed with heavy losses. The federal forces broke ranks and fled in disorder down Laurel Hill and took shelter in the woods.
Confederate Private John Coxe, of the 2D South Carolina Infantry Brigade that was part of the force that defended Laurel Hill, later wrote “But before they got back to the woods we saw one of their men turn back and run up the road towards us, and when he got near the cherry tree he stooped down and picked up the body of one of his comrades, put it on his shoulder, and rapidly walked back into his own lines. No Confederate gun was trained on that man. We all admired his pluck and imagined the picked-up body was that of his kinsman or friend.”
Print of an original 24″ x 30″ oil on canvas painting.
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