Swedish-born artist Thure de Thulstrup’s Civil War paintings have long been a favorite of mine. Honing in on a particular piece of the fighting at a number of major battles—including the Dunker Church at Antietam, the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh, and Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg—de Thulstrup conveys a sense of the chaos and ferocity of combat experienced by Union and Confederate troops. His work is powerful, captivating, and tragic at once.
My personal favorite is the de Thulstrup piece shared on this issue’s cover: a depiction of the fight on May 12, 1864, for the salient (known as the Mule Shoe) in the Confederate defenses at Spotsylvania Court House. The struggle for that spot, subsequently nicknamed “the Bloody Angle,” was savage. As one Union officer later put it, “[I]t was literally a hand-to-hand fight. Nothing but the piled-up logs, or breastworks, separated the combatants. Our men would reach over the logs and fire into the faces of the enemy; would stab over with their bayonets; many were shot and stabbed through the crevices and holes between the logs; men mounted the works, and with muskets rapidly handed them, kept up a continuous fire until they were shot down, when others would take their places and continue the deadly work.”
In this issue’s cover story (“Mayhem at the Mule Shoe,” page 22), Jeffry Wert looks at that brutal fight from the Confederate perspective, focusing on the actions of Samuel McGowan’s brigade of veteran South Carolina troops, whose performance helped avert what might otherwise have been a crushing defeat for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Want to share your thoughts on this or other articles in the issue? Send your emails to [email protected].
***
Speaking of your thoughts, you’ll note that this issue doesn’t contain our usual letters to the editor section. Not to worry—it will return with our Spring 2023 issue. So please, keep your letters coming! We truly value your feedback and suggestions.
Finally, our regular readers might notice that this issue looks a bit different than usual. That’s the work of our design team, which has given our pages a bit of a refresh. Our thanks to them for their continued hard work.
