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Battle of Spotsylvania • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies

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Stop 5 on the Battle of Spotsylvania Auto Tour is at the end of McCoull Road, 0.2 mile from Gordon Drive. The parking area is next to the foundation of the McCoull House. A trail leads from the parking area 150 yards northwest to the monument to Ramseur’s North Carolina Brigade.

Monument to Ramseur’s Brigade (see more)

Stop Five is a trailhead for a walking trail that leads to the monument to Ramseur’s North Carolina Brigade, about 150 yard west. The trail continues on to Anderson Drive.

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There are also two wayside markers at Stop Five:

Mayhem in the Muleshoe wayside marker

Text from the marker:

Mayhem in the Muleshoe

Surrounded on all sides by low ridge lines, Neil MccCoull’s house sat in the center of the famous Muleshoe Salient. On the night of May 8, 1864, Confederate engineers built the bulging line of earthworks that wrapped around McCoull’s farm to the west, north and east. When Union troops broke through the Muleshoe on May 12, Confederates swarmed over McCoull’s farm, desperate to reclaim their lines.

Thousands of troops passed by this house en route to some of the most desperate fighting the world had ever seen – at the Bloody Angle, only a few hundred yards in front of you. Hundreds of thousands of bullets pelted the earth around the house; artillery shells by the hundreds screeched overhead. When the Confederates fell back to a new line early on the morning of May 13, they left behind McCoull’s bullet-riddled house and a field strewn with corpses.

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McCoull House wayside marker

Text from the marker:

McCoull House

This was the home of farmer Neil McCoull and his unmarried sisters Mary, Eliza, and Milly. McCoull’s farm was typical of those that dotted Spotsylvania County: a few hundred acres that produced a modest income from corn and other grains. Like his neighbors the Harrisons, McCoull owned slaves, a circumstance common to more than half of Spotsylvania’s residents.

Around the house stood a kitchen and other outbuildings. Simple dirt roads connected the McCoulls to their neighbors the Harrisons (to the south) and Landrams (0.75 mile north). Neil McCoull was absent during the fighting here in May 1864, but his sisters survived the battle by taking shelter in the basement of the house. When they emerged, they found a landscape dominated by death.

Caption to the background photo:

Like so many Spotsylvania County homes, the McCoull house survived the Civil War only to be destroyed by fire in later years. This photograph was probably taken in the late 1800s.

Caption to the photo in the upper right:

Of nearly 900 farms in Spotsylvania County, none would witness more death than Neil McCoull’s. Union burials on the farm numbered 1,492. The number of Confederate burials – like those shown in the photo – is not known.

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Map and directions to Tour Stop 5

Tour Stop 5 is at the end of McCoull Road, 0.2 mile from Gordon Drive. (38°13’12.0″N 77°36’00.6″W)

Directions to the next stop on the Auto Tour:
Take McCoull Road back to Gordon drive. Turn left, and continue 0.6 mile. Stop 6 is on the left side of the road. The ‘Containing the Enemy, Reclaiming the Works’ wayside marker is on the south side of the road about halfway to Stop 6

(go to the main Battle of Spotsylvania Auto Tour page)