May 12, 1864 Colonel William Penrose’s First New Jersey Brigade, composed of the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 15th New Jersey Infantry regiments and four companies of the 2nd New Jersey Infantry Regiment (six companies of the 2nd were deployed on picket duty and the 10th New Jersey Infantry was on detached duty), attacked the Confederate position at the “Bloody Angle” at Spotsylvania, Virginia, suffering heavy casualties.
In two weeks of fighting at Spotsylvania, which began on May 8, the brigade suffered 789 casualties, most of them on May 12. The 15th New Jersey Infantry lost 272 men killed, wounded and missing at Spotsylvania, a total exceeded by only one other Union regiment at the battle, the 148th Pennsylvania. Only one other federal regiment, the 5th New York Infantry at Second Bull Run, lost more men killed in a single battle during the course of the Civil War.
