Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/207

 Spotsylvania Courthouse. 195

SPOTSYLVANIA COURTHOUSE ON MAY i8, 1864.

Address of Colonel WM. E. CUTSHAW, before Lee Camp, Richmond, Virginia, January 20, 1905.

In accepting your kind invitation, I beg to refer to the dates of the several battles and engagements in the neighborhood of Spotsylvania Courthouse that the distinct points of this address may be clearly brought forth, without confusion or mixing with those of other dates.

After the battles of the Wilderness, the army of the Potomac, under General Grant, moved to the left towards Spotsylvania. The army of Northern Virginia, under General Lee, also moved and confronted the Northern army, and, on the 8th of May, had an engagement with it near Spotsylvania Courthouse. On the loth of May portions of the Confederate lines were attacked by the Federal army and repulsed. On the 12th of May the centre of the Confederate lines was assaulted and broken by the Fed- eral army at what was known as the Salient, or Bloody Angle, threatening a great disaster to the Confederate army. On the 13th of May the Confederate lines were moved back to a re- vised position, nearly a mile in rear of the former Salient, and these new lines were assaulted by an early morning attack of iVlay 1 8th by very nearly the same Federal troops that were engaged on the 12th. It is this attack and repulse that makes the subject of my paper. Both the army of the Potomac and the army of Northern Virginia had seen service in the field for nearly three years, and in every essential were, indeed, veteran soldiers. It is doubtful if the courage and the endurance of any soldiers in any army was surpassed by that of the Con- federate soldier, and his example, either in attack or resistance, is not surpassed by the armies of the world, impelled as he was