Spotsylvania County

County in northeastern Virginia, bounded to the north by the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers and to the southwest by the North Anna River; area 1,046 sq km/404 sq mi; population (1990) 57,400. Its capital is Spotsylvania. The county is partly suburban and partly rural, with some agriculture and livestock raising. The site of a number of major Civil War battles, it attracts many tourists.

The historic independent city of Fredericksburg is in the northeast. The various units of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park commemorate such battles as Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania.

At the Battle of Spotsylvania in May 1864, the advancing Union forces and the Confederates fought inconclusively. On 12 May, the height of the battle, hand-to-hand combat at a bend in the trench lines called the ‘Bloody Angle’ caused many of the day's 12,000 casualties.