In the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania of the Overland Campaign, the VI Corps encountered the hardest contested fighting of its experience. At the Wilderness, the Vermont Brigade—Getty's Division—lost 1,232 men out of the 2,800 effectives that crossed the Rapidan River on the previous day. At Spotsylvania, the Jersey Brigade of Wright's Division was engaged in a deadly struggle, the percentage of killed in the 15th New Jersey being equaled in only one instance during the whole war. General Sedgwick was killed by a sniper's bullet at Spotsylvania on May 9, which caused great distress to the soldiers of the corps, who loved and admired their "Uncle John". General Wright succeeded to the command of the corps, Brig. Gen. David A. Russell succeeding Wright in the command of the 1st Division. On May 10, Col. Emory Upton led a storming party of twelve picked regiments selected from the VI Corps; they carried the Confederate works in the "Mule Shoe" after a hand-to-hand fight in which bayonet wounds were freely given and received. On May 12, the entire corps fought at the "Bloody Angle", where the fighting was among the closest and deadliest of any recorded in the Civil War. The casualties of the corps at the Wilderness were 5,035 (719 killed, 3,660 wounded, 656 missing); and at Spotsylvania, 4,042 (688 killed, 2,820 wounded, 534 missing).