Spotsylvania stump

From the smithsonian website:

This shattered stump was once a healthy oak tree in a rolling meadow just outside Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia.

On the morning of May 12, 1864, 1,200 entrenched Confederates, the front line of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, awaited the assault of 5,000 Union troops from the 2nd Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Twenty hours later, the once-peaceful meadow had acquired a new name, the “Bloody Angle.” The same fury of rifle bullets that cut down 2,000 combatants tore away all twenty-two inches of this tree's trunk. Several of the conical minie balls are still deeply embedded in the wood. Originally presented to the U.S. Army's Ordnance Museum by Brevet Major General Nelson A. Miles, the stump was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1888.


Division of the History of Technology, Armed Forces History
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Behring Center
Transfer from the U.S. War Department

Kinda makes you wonder how they had any survivors.