The Battle of the Wilderness

The Wilderness was a wild, dense, trackless forest whose cut-over woods, deadfall, brush, and re-emerging growth made combat especially horrific, filling soldiers with fear, fire, and shock as battle lines appeared and vanished in the gloom. Here the armies of Lee and Grant met in their first clash, with Lee standing in 1864 as perhaps the last and only hope for a struggling Confederacy and Grant entering the campaign knowing that the summer's fighting would help determine the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. The battle began when Union and Confederate forces collided at Saunders Field astride the Orange Turnpike, the fighting's outcome hinged on control of the elevated clearing at Chewning Farm, Lee's men had constructed several miles of earth and log defenses by the end of the battle along the line later followed by modern Hill-Ewell Drive, and at Tapp Field Lee's troops stopped him from leading a counterattack with the cry, "Lee to the rear!" The Battle of the Wilderness began eleven months of grinding combat that transformed and decided the American Civil War.

Lake of the Woods, Virginia · United States