Recollections of the Civil War

8–21 May 1864

Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

MAPS

The Battlefield of Spottsylvania Court House At End

WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA

Before the lines of Spottsylvania the Army of the ' See Long's Memoirs of R. E. Lee, page 343.

WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA

In this contest, unparalleled in its continuous fiu-y, and swelling to the proportions of a campaign, language is inade- quate to convey an impression of the labors, fatigues, and sufferings of the troops, who fought by day only to march by night, from point to point of the long line, and renew the fight on the morrow. Above forty thousand men had already fallen in the bloody encounters of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, and the exhausted army began to lose its spirit. It was with joy, therefore, that it at length turned its back upon the lines of Spottsylvania.

JULY 25 TO SEPTEMBER 18, I864

One of the best officers in our corps died very suddenly this morning, so suddenly that they supposed it must be heart disease. He was wounded in the Spottsylvania fight of May 1 2th by a ramrod passing through his arm after it had grazed his side. A small piece of the ramrod, it seems, remained in his side and it worked its way in until this morning it pierced his heart and killed him. He was all right yesterday. The post-mortem examination elicited these facts. He was Major Ellis of the Forty-ninth New York, and was the inspector-general of our division. The division was paraded in his honor as his remains were carried to the depot on their way home.