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Spotsylvania stump
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This shattered stump was once a healthy oak tree
in a rolling meadow just outside Spotsylvania Court
House, Virginia. On the morning of May 12, 1864,
1,200 entrenched Confederates, the front line of
General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia,
awaited the assault of 5,000 Union troops from the
2nd Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Twenty hours
later, the once-peaceful meadow had acquired a new
name, the “Bloody Angle.” The same fury
of rifle bullets that cut down 2,000 combatants
tore away all twenty-two inches of this tree's trunk.
Several of the conical minie balls are still deeply
embedded in the wood. Originally presented to the
U.S. Army's Ordnance Museum by Brevet Major General
Nelson A. Miles, the stump was transferred to the
Smithsonian in 1888. |
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Division of the History of Technology, Armed Forces
History
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution
Behring Center
Transfer from the U.S. War Department
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