A Tempest of Iron and Lead

May 1864. The Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia spent three days in brutal close-quarter combat in the Wilderness that left the tangled thickets aflame. No one could imagine a more infernal battlefield. Then they marched down the road to Spotsylvania Court House.

Even the march itself was unprecedented. For three years, the armies had fought and disengaged. That changed on the night of May 7. Instead of leaving the Wilderness to regroup, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant led the Federal army southward, skirmishing with Confederates all the way. “There will be no turning back,” he had declared. He lived up to his word. By dawn on May 8, the armies had tangled their way ten miles down the road and opened another large-scale fight that would last until May 21. “One thing is certain of this campaign thus far,” explained Dr. Daniel Holt of the 121st New York: “more blood has been shed, more lives lost, and more human suffering undergone than ever before in a season.”

The fighting launched a score of new place names and events that would sear themselves into the American consciousness, including Laurel Hill, Upton’s assault, the Mule Shoe, the Bloody Angle, and Harris Farm. The casualties exacted at Spotsylvania would exceed those of the Wilderness by thousands. The fighting would severely test the offensive capabilities of Confederate commander Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army, just as the defensive posture his men embraced would, in turn, test the limits of Federal endurance.

In A Tempest of Iron and Lead: Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21, 1864, author Chris Mackowski has crafted a meticulous and comprehensible study of this endlessly fascinating campaign. Mackowski, long-familiar with the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, is a former historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Chris continues to give tours of the battlefield as the historian in residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the battlefield’s eastern front.

His intimate knowledge of the landscape and nearly two decades of insight, together with primary source materials, outstanding maps, and helpful images, combine to create a readable and satisfying single-volume account the campaign has so richly deserved.