Battle of Spotsylvania • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The Lee to the Rear! wayside marker is at Stop 4 on the Auto Tour. It is next to the Harrison House marker. (38°13’03.3″N 77°36’12.3″W; map)
Just a week earlier a similar crisis moved Lee to lead a desperate counterattack by the Texas Brigade at the Battle of the WIlderness. Like Gordon’s Georgians, the Texans forced Lee to leave the front lines before launching the attack.
From the marker:
Lee to the Rear
The General’s countenance showed that he had despaired and was ready to die rather than see the defeat of his army.
Isaac G. Bradwell
3rd Georgia Infantry
In these fields on the morning of May 12, 1864, Gen. Robert E. Lee faced a crisis so severe that he felt compelled to lead his troops personally into battle. It was the third such crisis in a week – a sure sign of the Confederate army’s dwindling power.
Soon after dawn a courier dashed up to Confederate Gen. John Gordon at the Harrison house with an urgent message: A Union attack had shattered the Confederate line at the Muleshoe Salient, about a half-mile to your left. As Gordon’s Georgians prepared to counterattack, Gen. Robert E. Lee took his place among them, intent on leading them into battle.
The solders would not permit it. “Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!” they shouted. Two soldiers stepped forward, grabbed the bridle of Lee’s horse and led him to safety. Gordon’s men then plunged into battle. Within minutes they had recaptured the eastern face of the Salient – the prelude to a day of horrific fighting.
(go to the main Tour Stop 4 page)
(go to the main Battle of Spotsylvania Auto Tour page)