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This full 360° panoramic photograph shows the site of the most brutal and sustained combat that occurred during the American Civil War. Early in the morning of May 12, 1864, 20,000 massed troops of the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac broke out of the mist and assaulted the prominent salient defended by Ewell's Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. Initially, catching the defenders by surprise, the Union line overran the Confederate position. But the confusion of the battle disrupted the initial signs of victory and General Robert E. Lee personally directed a counterattack that drove the Union fighters back till only the earthworks of the original salient separated the two armies. Along this line, the fighting raged for over eighteen hours till Lee withdrew his forces behind newly constructed trenches. A Union officer recounted, "I never expect to be fully believed when I tell what I saw of the horrors of Spotsylvania, because I should be loath to believe it myself were the case reversed."
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