Battle of Spottsylvania Virginia Civil War Art Print

An archival premium Quality art Print of the Battle of Spottsylvania by Kurz and Allison copyright dated 1888 for sale by Brandywine General Store. This battle was also sometimes known as the Battle of Spottsylvania Court House and was the 2nd major battle of General Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign. This battle pitted the two big Generals against each other, Grant for the Union and Lee for the South. Neither commander wanted to fight this battle, both had taken heavy tolls in the Wilderness Battle shortly before and neither side had yet to fully recover and were still exhausted, but the Rebel leader wasn't known for backing down from a fight. Lee and his men reached Spottsylvania first and dug in and got entrenched while Grant was on his way to Richmond, so war was necessary for the Union to break through. This started out as normal skirmishes but soon developed into an all out war. Witnesses later said the air was so full of musket fire and cannon shot that even the trees were killed. At places the dead were stacked a half dozen high and with rains, the waters ran red with blood. Some of the injured on the bottoms of these piles actually drowned in the mud, or so it was reported. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War and the heaviest death toll of any battle during the year of 1864. Grant retreated from his advance and went to a place less defended for his march to the capitol of the Confederacy. The Union army took a very heavy toll, but Grant had men and reserves to replace what he lost, where Lee was running on empty. So even though the Confederates didn't lose as many soldiers as the Union Army, this battle was more injurious to them because of the low number of men left in the South to fight. Civil War art print #23