Meade, Wright, Mott & Upton, May 10, Spotsylvania.

[Lefty]

Any thoughts on Mott's performance in conjunction with Upton's May 10 assualt? Has there ever been any conclusive evidence pointing towards the actual objective or goal of Mott's attack?

Was Wright in over his head? May 10 being his first day in command of Sixth corps as a result of Sedgwick's death on May 9. An inexperienced Wright is also given attached command of Mott's Second corps division. About the only thing Meade tells Wright to do is attack at 5:00 PM and even that gets botched and seemingly nobody notifies Mott that the attack is changed to 6:00 PM. There are also Mott's alleged dalliances....not moving until his men have made coffee, references to Mott that morning being "somewhat stupid and flurried" etc.

Was Mott made a scapegoat? Was the whole fiasco one big SNAFU? History seems to be treating Mott kinder as time goes on and one can't help but wonder if orders were lost or never recieved or if something was being covered up.

Nevertheless, it all seems very uncertain about what Mott's force was actually supposed to achieve?

 

[The Iron Duke]

Gordon Rhea discusses this issue pretty thoroughly in his book on Spotsylvania and he concludes that Mott was unfairly made a scapegoat. I really don't know much about this issue so I can't really say if I agree or disagree with Rhea.

 

[Lefty]

I know Spotsylvania is unfortuneately a kind of a doormat battle as far as interest goes so let me kind of rephrase this question since nobody seems to want to tackle it:

In many ways Mott's forlorn charge reminds me of the 27th Indiana and the 2nd Massachusetts similar attack at Gettysburg. Theirs was clearly a mistaken order. They were supposed to, at the very least, locate the end of the Confederate line. Instead of employing a skirmish line, the order gets garbled and they go out in battle lines with flags flying, into a massacre.

I just don't understand what Mott's force was expected to achieve?