Battle of Spotsylvania • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The Ninth Corps wayside marker pullout is not part of the Auto Tour. It is on the south side of Burnside Drive about 0.4 mile south of Stop 6 on the Auto Tour and about halfway to Stop 7.
From the marker:
The Ninth Corps
To support Hancock’s May 12 assault at the East Angle, Grant ordered General Ambrose E. Burnside’s Ninth Corps to attack the Muleshoe Salient here along its eastern face. Shouldering their way through wet woods, Burnside’s men reached this spot shortly after dawn. Ahead, at the top of the hill, General James H. Lane’s North Carolina brigade waited to meet them behind substantial trenches made of earth and logs.
As the Federals approached, the Carolinians let loose with “prolonged cheers and death dealing volleys.” Some Union soldiers halted to return the fire; others pressed forward to the works, engaging the Confederates in a lethal hand-to-hand fight. It lasted just a few minutes. When Confederate reinforcements appeared, the Union soldiers retreated back down the slope and dug in here. For the rest of the day they remained pinned down, taking 2,500 casualties to no purpose.
From the captions:
Formerly the leader of the Army of the Potomac, General Ambrose Burnside had resigned command after his defeat at Fredericksburg in December 1862. By May 1864, he commanded the Ninth Corps.
View toward Spotsylvania Court House from Burnside’s front along the Fredericksburg Road.
The marker looks over the remains of earthworks put up by the Union soldiers after an unsucessful attack on the Confederate flank on May 12, 1864. The remains of the trenches are still plainly visible.
Location of the marker
‘The Ninth Corps’ wayside marker is on the south side of Burnside Drive about 0.45 mile east of Stop 6 on the Spotsylvania Battlefield Auto Tour. (38°12’55.7″N 77°35’28.8″W)
(go to the Tour Stop 7 page)
(go to the main Battle of Spotsylvania Auto Tour page)