Battle of Spotsylvania • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The Fighting for Time wayside marker is on the north side of Gordon Drive at Stop 6 on the Spotsylvania Battlefield Auto Tour next to the start of the East Face of the Salient walking trail.
The view looks northeast at the beginning of the East Face of the Salient Walking Trail (through the fences). The trail follows the Confederate earthworks on the east side of the Muleshoe salient at Spotsylvania. Lost in the early hours of the fighting, the Confederates retook these defences and held them against repeated Union attacks throughout the day until a new defensive line was completed to the rear.
Fighting for Time
Throughout May 12, Confederates here waged a battle for critical minutes and hours. When Union troops swarmed over the east face of the Muleshoe Salient before dawn, Robert E. Lee knew instantly that the position – even if regained temporarily – could not be held permanently. But to build a new line farther to the rear, he needed time.
Though driven away in the first hour of the battle, the Confederates fought their way back into these works by 7 a.m. For the rest of the day they weathered repeated attacks, as Union troops built ragged, impromptu works to their front in an effort to close on the Confederate position. The fighting here transformed the landscape; the scars remain.
Ultimately the Confederates held this line long enough for Lee to establish a new line, a mile behind you. The cost: hundreds killed and wounded, all for nothing more substantial than ticks on the clock and a few inches of ravaged landscape.
Map and directions to the marker
The ‘Fighting for Time’ wayside marker is on the north side of Gordon Drive at Stop 6 on the Spotsylvania Battlefield Auto Tour next to the start of the walking trail. (38°13’14.8″N 77°35’36.3″W)
(go to the Tour Stop 6 page)
(go to the main Battle of Spotsylvania Auto Tour page)