"Bloody Angle" Spotsylvania / SOLD

"Bloody Angle" Spotsylvania -  Inventory Number: BAY 182 / SOLD

Model 1855 Socket Bayonet - Base has a bold U.S. stamping.  The blade is finely painted with the legend: "Spotsylvania VA.  "Bloody Angle" May 12 '64."  Wonderful early museum relic with painted inscription. 

Fighting at the Muleshoe Salient focused on a slight turn in the Confederate earthworks, known as the “Bloody Angle.” The Angle occupied a small knoll that commanded adjacent parts of the Confederate line. Whoever controlled the knoll controlled the Salient. For 22 hours Union and Confederate soldiers vied for possession of the Angle, firing across the works or engaging one another in grim, hand-to-hand combat.

During the battle Union soldiers took cover in the ravine. Time and again they rushed forward to attack the Angle, only to be beaten back. With each repulse they left the ground between the ravine and the Angle strewn with hundreds of wounded and dying men. Bodies piled up three, four, even five deep, forming what one man described as “a perfect rampart of [the] dead….” By day’s end, up to 17,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured.

Inventory Number: BAY 182 / SOLD