Thickets, swamps, and ravines,
rendered intelligent direction and concerted manoeuvering impossible,
and furious and bloody as was the conflict, its results were indecisive.
No enemy appearing on the seventh, Grant boldly started to Spottsylvania
Court House, only, however, to find the Confederates ahead of him; and
on the eighth and ninth these turned their position, already strong by
nature, into an impregnable intrenched camp. Grant assaulted their works
on the tenth, fiercely, but unsuccessfully. There followed one day of
inactivity, during which Grant wrote his report, only claiming that
after six days of hard fighting and heavy losses "the result up to this
time is much in our favor"; but expressing, in the phrase which
immediately became celebrated, his firm resolution to "fight it out on
this line if it takes all summer."
On May 12, 1864, Grant ordered a yet more determined attack, in which,
with fearful carnage on both sides, the Union forces finally stormed the
earthworks which have become known as the "bloody angle." But finding
that other and more formidable intrenchments still resisted his entrance
to the Confederate camp, Grant once more moved by the left flank past
his enemy toward Richmond. Lee followed with equal swiftness along the
interior lines.
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