A Region of Gloom

From the time of its earliest settlement, this region was known as the Wilderness of Spotsylvania because of its dense thickets and poor soil, and locals called the countryside just west of the Wilderness the Poison Fields. High concentrations of iron and other minerals, including gold, made for poor growing conditions, and scrawny trees dominated the landscape. The iron industry made the area even more forbidding: the soil's mineral content spawned mines and iron furnaces as early as 1718, and those furnaces, including Catharine Furnace, required vast amounts of charcoal, demanding that huge swaths of timber be cut for fuel. Decades of cutting left behind a landscape engulfed by newly emerging pines, stunted oaks, vines, thorn bushes, and honeysuckle, creating what one officer called a wilderness in the most forbidding sense of the word.

Lake Wilderness, Virginia · United States