Memorials, such as this marker to an Ohio regiment, dot the Bloody Angle at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park/Buddy Secor
Fall, which is arguably the best season for hiking in the National Park System, is almost upon us. The cool days and bright colors provide hikers with plenty of incentive to hit the trails.
With that wonderful season in mind, we’ve selected some of the country’s “scenic trails” for your consideration. To those we’ve added a Yellowstone National Park classic, a hike in Canyonlands National Park, and another that traces one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.
Here's our fourth hike for this fall:
The Bloody Angle
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
In 1864 a bucolic meadow turned into a roiling, bloody battlefield for nearly a full day as 20,000 Union troops attacked thousands of Confederate soldiers determined to hold their lines.
Today this corner of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park has returned to its pastoral serenity. The battle’s aftermath of that deadly spring day is marked by placards and earthworks, which still reflect the undulations of the meadow.
Historians say the battle that day was, “the longest sustained intense fight of the Civil War.” You can trace its movements in a trail that winds its way across the fields. Less than a mile in length, the trail crosses features of the landscape called the “Mule Shoe Salient,” and the “Bloody Angle,” names taken both from a small “u” or “v”-shaped ridge, or salient, that the Rebel forces hoped to hold in a battle against the Union forces, and from the carnage that followed.
The Confederate forces built loglined earthworks at shoulder height, but as the battle slogged on they couldn’t protect the soldiers from the sheer mass of the Union onslaught. Historians recount that the day’s battle, conducted in a light rain that created muddy conditions, led to dead stacked five deep.
During your walk, pause before the stone monuments that memorialize the troops that fought at the Bloody Angle, as well as the site where a tree, 22 inches in diameter, was felled by the rain of gunfire.
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