On this episode of Our American Stories, on May 12, 1864, a large oak tree stood in the middle of some of the fiercest fighting of the Civil War. For nearly 20 hours, Union and Confederate soldiers battled at close range at the Bloody Angle during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Thousands of bullets ripped through the air, and so many struck the oak that they eventually cut through its trunk and brought the tree crashing down. What remained was a shattered, bullet-riddled stump.

In this installment of our American Objects series, Ashley Hlebinsky shares the story of the Spotsylvania Stump.

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