Gordon Flank Attack Trail

In this field and its surrounding woods, nearly one-third of the men killed or wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness fell. Here, open-field Union attacks initiated the battle, stalemate followed in the tangled woods to the north, and after two days of fighting a devastating Confederate flank attack almost brought the Federals to disaster. The mature forests here today differ greatly from the Wilderness of 1864, where years of timbering had left vast tracts of matted thickets and young trees that created a sometimes impenetrable landscape. One of Grant's officers wrote that it was a battle fought with the ear and not the eye, as all circumstances seemed to combine to make the scene one of unutterable horror.

Lake of the Woods, Virginia · United States