The exhibit shelter provides an overview of the battle. The signs were difficult to photograph so I included the text below the corresponding image.

Text- On no American battlefield did the landscape do more to intensify the horror of combat. One soldier called the Wilderness “a wild, weird, region… [a] dense and trackless forest.” For decades loggers had cut and re-cut these forests to fuel nearby iron furnaces, leaving behind an impenetrable mix of deadfall, brush, and re-emerging growth. For the soldiers who fought here, that meant fear, fire, and shock—battle lines popped up and disappeared into the gloom like deadly phantoms. The armies of Lee and Grant collided here in the first clash between the two leaders. In 1864, Lee stood as perhaps the last and only hope for a struggling Confederacy. Union General Grant entered battle knowing the summer’s campaign would help determine the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. What he could not know—no one could—was that the Battle of the Wilderness would commence 11 months of grinding combat that would both transform and decide the American Civil War. Saunders Field- The battle began when Union and Confederate forces collided in this small field astride the Orange Turnpike. Chewning Farm- The outcome of the fighting hinged on which side could control this elevated clearing. Hill-Ewell Drive- By battle’s end, Lee’s men had constructed several miles of earth and log defenses. Modern Hill-Ewell Drive follows the remains of the Confederate line. Tapp Field- When the Confederate leader attempted to lead his troops in a counterattack across this field, his men forced him back to safety with the cry, “Lee to the rear!”

The Fighting Ends in Stalemate

Text- Brush fires added to the horror of the Wilderness fighting. Ignited by muzzle blasts and fuled by dead leaves and twigs, fires swept through the dry woods, obscuring soldiers’ vision and filling their lungs with suffocating smoke. “Two hundred thousand men, inspired with the desperation of demons,” wrote one soldier, “were fighting in a wilderness of fire.” Hundreds of wounded men, unable to escape the devouring flames, suffered an agonizing death. Others, unwilling to endure such a fire, chose instead to take their own lives. Union artilleryman Frank Wilkerson saw a man with two broken legs lying between the lines. Next to him lay a loaded rifle. “I know he meant to kill himself in case of fire,” wrote Wilkerson, “knew it as surely as though I could read his thoughts.”

Text- Although the Wilderness yielded no clear winner both sides emerged from the fighting felling optimistic. Tactically, the Confederates could claim victory. Lee had inflicted heavy losses on the Union army and had twice turned Grant’s flanks. Strategically, however, Grant held the upper hand. He not only retained the initiative, but he had also reduced the Confederate army by twenty percent – soldiers whom Lee could not readily replace. “…In the long run, we ought to succeed, because it is in our power more promptly to fill the gaps in men and material which this constant fighting produces.” George Gordon Meade.

Text- Two days of fighting had left the two armies bloody and exhausted. Each side entrenched and waited for the other to attack. Believing that Lee was preparing to abandon the Wilderness and retreat to Richmond, Grant issued orders for a night march to Spotsylvania Court House. Spotsylvania stood between the Wilderness and the Confederate capital. Whoever reached the village first would have the shortest route to Richmond. The Union army quietly began pulling out of the trenches after dark on May 7. Warren and Hancock took the Brock Road (modern Route 613), while Sedgwick and Burnside marched by routes further to the east. Anticipating Grant’s move, Lee started his army for Spotsylvania that same night. Whoever held the village would have the shortest route to Richmond.

Text- The Union army lost more than 17,500 men in the Wilderness. Those who died were buried in temporary graveyards like that shown below, if indeed they were buried at all. After the war most were taken to Fredericksburg National Cemetery. Confederate casualties in the two-day battle, though not precisely known, numbered around 11,000. The Southern dead are interred in the Fredericksburg Confederate Cemetery. A small number from both armies may still lie buried on the battlefield.

Clash on the Orange Turnpike Display

Text- After joining the Army of the Potomac in March 1864, Grant reported that “the troops feel like whipping somebody.” No one was more eager for a fight than the general himself. When Meade reported Confederates advancing down the Orange Turnpike on May 5, Grant ordered his subordinate to pitch into the enemy without delay. The fighting commenced in Saunders Field. General Gouverneur K. Warren’s Fifth Corps charged across the clearing, engaging General Richard S. Ewell’s Confederates in hand-to-hand combat. Fighting spilled into the woods adjoining the road, as Grant and Meade attempted to outflank the Southern line. Ewell thwarted their efforts, however, and by evening the exhausted combatants entrenched.

Text- May 6 was a comparatively peaceful day for Union soldiers on the Orange Turnpike. Following a brisk exchange of gunfire that morning, the fighting had tapered off. Now, as the sun dipped below the western horizon, Northern soldiers began to relax and prepare themselves dinner. Rifle fire in the woods north of the road interrupted their meal. Five thousand Confederates, led by General John B. Gordon, had taken position on the Union army’s right flank and were attacking. Panic spread rapidly down the Union line. Two Federal generals and 800 other men fell captive. Nightfall and a stiffening Union defense, however, limited Gordon’s gains. Though battered, the Army of the Potomac ultimately took position in a new set of works, ensuring that the Battle of the Wilderness would end in stalemate.

Text- The Army of the Potomac– Throughout the winter of 1863-1864, the armies rested and refitted on opposite sides of the Rapidan River. The ranks of the Union army swelled with thousands of new draftees and recruits – soldiers whose commitment to the cause many questioned. “Never in a war…did the rank and file feel a more resolute earnestness for a just cause, and a more invincible determination to succeed….” Wilbur Fisk, 2nd Vermont Infantry, April 7, 1864. Commander: Major General George Gordon Meade Strength: 120,000 men and 275 cannon

The Army of Northern Virginia– The Confederates struggled to keep their existing regiments full. In the Wilderness they would bring to the battle 13,000 fewer men than they had fielded at Gettysburg the year before. “The troops are all in excellent spirits, and eager for the fray. Gen. Grant’s glory will soon vanish away, and his great name buried along with those of his unfortunate predecessors.” Samuel Clyde, 2nd South Carolina Infantry, April 28, 1864. Commander: General Robert E. Lee
Strength: 60,000 men and 226 cannon

Struggle on the Orange Plank Road

Text- Crises followed one after another on May 5. No sooner had Grant and Meade learned about Ewell’s approach on the Orange Turnpike than they discovered General A.P. Hill’s corps moving up the Orange Plank Road. If Hill reached the Brock Road, he would cut the Army of the Potomac in two. Union commanders rushed General Winfield S. Hancock’s Second Corps to the imperiled crossroads, securing it for the North. At 4 p.m., Hancock assailed Hill’s line. Fighting behind low logworks and amidst fires, Hill’s men stubbornly defended themselves against Hancock’s sledgehammer blows. When the fighting ended four hours later, Hill’s battered line was still intact. “The wounded stream out, and fresh troops pour in. Stretchers pass with ghastly burdens, and go back reeking with blood for more.” Reporter Charles Page, New York Tribune

The sound of cannon and the crash of musketry awakened Southern soldiers shortly after dawn, May 6. The Army of Northern Virginia was again under attack. On the Plank Road, A.P. Hill’s thin line collapsed under the weight of the assault. Disaster loomed. Just then, Confederate troops pushed through the smoke toward the front. General James Longtreet’s corps – 20,000 strong – arrived in the nick of time. Longstreet struck Hancock’s exposed left flank, rolling up the Union line “like a wet blanket.” In the confusion, Longstreet was shot by his own troops. Lee resumed the attack five hours later, but by then Hancock had rallied his men behind strong earthworks. The Confederate assault – Lee’s last grand attack of the war – failed.

The Collision of Giants display

Text– “…We should neglect no honorable means of dividing and weakening our enemies…It seems to me that the most effectual mode of accomplishing this object…is to give all the encouragement we can, consistently with the truth, to the rising peace party of the North.”
Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, June 10, 1863.
Crushing defeats, lost territory, and shortages of men, food, and armaments beset the Confederates in 1863. Their hopes in 1864 lay not in absolute victory, but in Northern disunity. Continued military stalemate might result in Abraham Lincoln losing the coming presidential election. But could a shrinking land base, inadequate industry, and insufficient transport sustain the outnumbered Confederate armies long enough? Could Lee again forge victory against great odds? Divided over the issue of slavery, discouraged by huge losses without great victories, and rent by political division, the Union war effort sagged in 1864. What happened on the battlefields of Virginia and Georgia that spring and summer would decide the war. Would Lincoln – determined to carry the war to a victorious end – survive the election? Or would the Democrats – pledged to negotiate an end to the war – assume power over a dismembered Union?

Text- By 1864, the Confederacy’s diminishing hopes for independence lay with Robert E. Lee. Creative and aggressive, the 57-year-old Virginian consistently achieved victory where none seemed possible. He would face his greatest test as his army plunged into the Wilderness in May 1864. Unlike Lee, Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant rode to prominence on an inexorable tide of growing industrial and military power. His victories bore the mark of patience and determination, not dash and creativity. By 1864 he had risen to the command of all Union armies. Less inspiring than efficient, he attached himself to the Army of the Potomac for the 1864 campaign.

Text- With Grant in overall command, the war would be radically different in 1864. He pledged to “hammer continuously” at the South. The advance of the Army of the Potomac would be one of five major offensives along a 1,500-mile front. Grant halted the exchange of prisoners. Civilians would suffer at the hand of advancing armies – yielding crops, livestock, and in some cases homes to Union Forces. The goal: to defeat Confederate armies and demolish the South’s capacity to wage war. In Virginia, Grant set as his objective not the Confederate capital at Richmond, but Lee’s Army. On May 4, 1864, the Army of the Potomac started across the Rapidan River below Lee’s right flank. Grant hoped to move quickly through the choked, tangled area known as the Wilderness and engage Lee in the open land to the south and west. But cumbersome wagon trains slowed him down. On May 5 the armies collided in the Wilderness.

Text- The four battlefields located in Fredericksburg and neighboring counties comprise the bloodiest ground in all of North America. Yet early efforts to create a national military park at Fredericksburg went down to defeat in Congress. That changed in 1921 when General Smedley D. Butler brought 4,200 Marines to the Wilderness Battlefield. For five days the soldiers took part in what one newspaper called “the most gigantic mimic and maneuvers ever staged by the U.S. Marine Corps.” President Warren G. Harding attended the exercise and spent two days visiting with the troops. The event attracted national attention and renewed cries for the creation of a national military park. This time Congress responded favorably. On February 13, 1927, it established Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Today this is one of the largest military parks in the world, encompassing four battlefields where more than 100,000 Americans fell.

Text- The Wilderness of today looks little like the tangled landscape soldiers found here in 1864. For decades before the war, loggers had cut and recut these forests to fuel nearby iron furnaces, leaving behind an impenetrable mix of dead fall, brush and re-emerging growth. Only a few small farmers had dared to seek sustenance here. Their small clearings offered only relief from what one soldier called “the dark, close wood.” Military theorists who devised tactics of that era never envisioned waging war through such forbidding terrain. When the armies collided here, they had no time to change tactics. Instead, traditional battle ranks struggled through thickets, unable to see more than a few dozen feet. Lines of blue and gray collided without warning in horrific firefights. The woods burned – the wounded and dead, too. “It is,” one man wrote, “a region of gloom.”

Next- The Wilderness Driving Tour Stops 7-9