“The toughest fight yet. The fight for the salient”
Grant is beating his head against a wall.
150 years ago today Walter Herron Taylor, an aide to General Robert E. Lee, got off a letter to his beloved Bettie. From Lee’s Adjutant: The Wartime Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862-1865 (pages 160-161):
Near Spottsylvania C.H.
15 May 1864
A courier will start for Richmond in the morning, my dear Bettie, and though it is now quite late, I will send you a line or two to inform you of our good condition, prospects &c. We have had some very severe fighting & a great deal of one kind & another. With one single exception, our encounters with the enemy have been continuously & eminently successful. In the Wilderness we enjoyed several victories over vastly superior numbers – on arriving here we were blessed with another signal success. After we were established here, the enemy attacked every portion of our lines at different times, and with the one exception mentioned, were invariably hansomely repulsed & severely punished. The 12th was an unfortunate day for us – we recovered most of the ground lost but cd not regain our guns. This hurts our pride – but we are determined to make our next success all the greater to make amends for this disaster. Our men are in good heart & condition – our confidence, certainly mine, unimpaired. Grant is beating his head against a wall. His own people confess a loss of 50,000 thus far. He is moving tonight – we expect a renewal of the battle tomorrow. God has been good & kind, & has miraculously preserved me. Asking a continuance of his blessings & mercy & committing you, my precious one, to His Protective care, I remain yours as ever
Walter[1]
“The 12th was an unfortunate day for us” (Confederate prisoners at Belle Plain Landing, Va., captured with Johnson’s Division, May 12, 1864)
- [1]Taylor, Walter HerronLee’s Adjutant: The Wartime Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862-1865. Ed. R. Lockwood Tower with John S. Belmont. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. Print. pages 160-161.↩
