8. Unfortunately for Grant, inadequate cavalry screening allowed Lee's army to reach the crossroads before sufficient Union troops arrived to contest it. Spotsylvania Court House (May 8–21) At dawn on May 8, Fitzhugh Lee's cavalrymen staked out a defensive line on a low ridge that they dubbed "Laurel Hill." Reinforcements from Anderson arrived just as Warren's men pulled up within 100 yards to the north. Assuming only cavalry blocked his path, Warren ordered an immediate attack. Multiple attacks by the divisions of the V Corps were repulsed with heavy casualties. In the afternoon, Sedgwick's VI Corps arrived near Laurel Hill and extended Warren's line to the east. By 7 p.m., both corps began a coordinated assault but were repulsed by heavy fire. They attempted to move around Anderson's right flank, but were surprised to find that divisions from Ewell's Second Corps had arrived in that sector to repulse them again. Generals Meade and Sheridan had quarreled about the cavalry's performance throughout the campaign and their failures May 7–8 brought Meade's notorious temper to a boil. Sheridan told Meade that he could "whip Stuart" if Meade let him. Meade reported the conversation to Grant, who replied, "Well, he generally knows what he is talking about. Let him start right out and do it." Meade deferred to Grant's judgment and issued orders to Sheridan to "proceed against the enemy's cavalry." Sheridan's entire command of 10,000 cavalrymen departed the following day. They engaged with (and mortally wounded) Stuart at the Battle of Yellow Tavern on May 11, threatened the outskirts of Richmond, refitted near the James River, and did not return to the army until May 24. Grant and Meade were left without cavalry resources during the critical days of the battle to come. Over the night of May 8–9, the Confederates erected a series of earthworks more than long, highlighted by an exposed salient known as the "Mule Shoe" extending more than a mile (1.6 km) in front of the main trench line. At about 9 a.m., Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick was inspecting his VI Corps line when he was shot through the head by a Confederate sharpshooter's bullet, dying instantly. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright. Grant ordered Hancock to cross the Po River and attack the Confederates' left flank, driving them back toward Burnside's position near the Ni River, while the rest of his command, in the