Battle of Spotsylvania • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The Toughest Fight Yet wayside marker is on the walking trail at the Bloody Angle, Stop 3 on the Spotsylvania Battlefield Auto Tour. It is about 25 yards away from the monument to the 15th New Jersey, seen in the photo below.
Text from the marker:
“The Toughest Fight Yet”
Artist Alfred R. Waud sketched these Union soldiers under fire here on May 12, 1864. Lee’s counterattacks had driven the Union troops out of the Muleshoe, and here they are shown under cover on the outside of the Confederate trenches. Waud’s perspective was just a few feet from where you are now standing. It is the most immediate depiction of the fighting near the Bloody Angle that day. Waud labeled his sketch, “The toughest fight yet.”
In the image, the fighting rages most intensely to the right, the white smoke marks what would become known as the Bloody Angle. Amid the smoke stands a baffle-scarred oak, 22 inches in diameter, which would fall later in the day, cut down by small- arms fire. In the foreground, Union troops huddle up against the Confederate works amidst the carnage of earlier fighting.
Location of the marker
The marker is on the walking path the runs along the north side of the Confederate earthworks at Stop Three. It is about 200 yards from the east end of the parking area, where there is a footbridge over the earthworks..
(go to the main Tour Stop 3 page)
(go to the main Battle of Spotsylvania Auto Tour page)