Battle of Spotsylvania • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
Monuments on the Spotsylvania Battlefield
There are only a handful of monuments on the Spotsylvania battlefield. The first was dedicated in 1887 to John Sedgwick, the commander of the Union Sixth Corps and the senior United States Army officer to be killed in the Civil War. Three Union regimental monuments at the Bloody Angle and the monument to the Union Maryland Brigade followed from 1902 to 1914. It was eighty years before the next monument was placed on the Spotsylvania Battlefield. In 1994 the Upton’s Charge monument was dedicated, honoring both the Union attackers and the Confederate defenders. The monument to the 17th Michigan followed in 1997.
It was not until 2001 that the first Confederate monument was dedicated to Ramseur’s North Carolina Brigade. A monument to McGowan’s South Carolina Brigade followed in 2009.
Battle of Spotsylvania U.D.C. monument
Compass Rose at the Bloody Angle
Maryland Brigade (USA) Monument
McGowan’s South Carolina Brigade
17th Michigan Infantry Regiment
15th New Jersey Infantry Regiment
49th New York Infantry Regiment
Ramseur’s North Carolina Brigade
Historical Markers on the Spotsylvania Battlefield
Over two dozen wayside markers on the Spotsylvania battlefield help visitors interpret and understand the battlefield and what hapened here. The earliest markers were placed in the 1950s, aluminum displays set in a wooden framework. As printing display technology progressed colorful wayside markers helped tell the story of the battle.
Fatal Mistake at the East Angle
Race for Spotsylvania Court House
Spotsylvania Campaign May 8-10 marker