Wilderness

On May 5 through 7, 1864, Union and Confederate forces clashed in what became known as the Battle of the Wilderness, marking the opening engagement of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that year. The clash unfolded amid dense timber near Locust Grove, Virginia, roughly 20 miles (32 km) to the west of Fredericksburg. Losses on both sides climbed to nearly 29,000 combined, foreshadowing the grinding contest of attrition Grant would wage against Lee's forces and, in time, against Richmond itself, the Confederate seat of government. Though brutal, the engagement settled nothing tactically; Grant simply pulled his men back and pressed forward with his campaign.

Hoping to slip swiftly through the tangled thickets of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, Grant instead found Lee dispatching two corps along parallel routes to cut him off. Early on May 5, Major General Gouverneur K. Warren's Union V Corps struck Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell's Confederate Second Corps along the Orange Turnpike. By afternoon, Lieutenant General A. P. Hill's Third Corps ran into Brigadier General George W. Getty's division of the VI Corps along with Major General Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps on the Orange Plank Road. As night fell the combat broke off, having been savage yet indecisive, with both armies struggling to maneuver through the thick forest.

When daylight returned on May 6, Hancock pushed his assault along the Plank Road and threw Hill's corps into disarray, only to have Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps arrive just in time to shore up the crumbling Confederate right. Longstreet then struck an unexpected blow, sending troops along an unfinished rail bed to push Hancock's line backward, but this advantage evaporated once Longstreet fell wounded by his own soldiers. Later that evening, Brigadier General John B. Gordon struck the Union right flank, rattling the Union command, though the lines held firm and the fighting subsided. By May 7, Grant had broken contact and shifted his army southeast, abandoning the Wilderness in favor of positioning his forces between Lee and Richmond, a maneuver that would soon lead to engagements at Todd's Tavern and Spotsylvania Court House.

Background

For three years after the Civil War erupted in 1861, the United States Army, sometimes called the Union Army, struggled to gain ground against Confederate forces in the East. Its most notable triumphs instead came out west, most dramatically at Vicksburg, where roughly 30,000 Confederate troops laid down their arms. Frustrated by the lack of eastern success, President Abraham Lincoln sought a commander willing to press the fight. In March 1864 he called Major General Ulysses S. Grant east from the western theater, elevated him to lieutenant general, and placed him in charge of every Union army. Grant had already earned his reputation through victories at F

Disposition of forces and movement to battle

The Wilderness sits below the Rapidan River within Spotsylvania and Orange counties in Virginia. Spotsylvania Court House marks its southern edge, while Mine Run, a tributary of the Rapidan, generally defines the western boundary. Because the eastern edge is harder to pin down, scholars disagree on the overall size of the area, with figures ranging from 132 square miles (340 km2) up to 156 square miles (400 km2), though most historians settle on roughly 70 square miles (180 km2) when discussing engagements fought there. At the time, the landscape combined open patches with thickets of uneven density, much of it choked by young second-growth timber, scrub, bushes, and pine.

Few clearings existed, and the roads through the area were narrow and twisting, making large-scale mounted operations nearly out of the question. Smoke often hung in the thick woods, obscuring the enemy from view and forcing troops on the attack to fire toward noise rather than sight, a serious handicap. Formations struggled to hold their lines, frequently losing their bearings or firing on their own men by mistake. Confederate familiarity with the ground offset the numerical edge held by the Union, and the terrain also blunted the power of artillery on both sides. Grant understood that fighting in the Wilderness would neutralize his advantages in troop strength and guns, so he hoped instead to push his army farther south and meet Lee somewhere more open.

On May 2, Lee climbed Clark Mountain with his generals to survey the Union encampments spread below. From this vantage he sensed Grant was preparing to move, though the exact path remained uncertain. His guess, which proved accurate, was that Grant intended to cross east of the Confederate defenses along the Rapidan by way of Germanna and Ely's fords, though he lacked certainty. To keep his options open, Lee kept his forces spread widely apart. Longstreet's First Corps waited near Gordonsville, positioned so it could shift by rail toward either the Shenandoah Valley or Richmond if needed. Hill's Third Corps camped outside Orange Court House, while Ewell's Second Corps held ground near Morton's Ford and Mine Run to Hill's northeast. Stuart's cavalry stretched out even farther, from

Battle May 5

The clash in the Wilderness unfolded along two separate lines, one following the Orange Turnpike and the other the Orange Plank Road, and infantry did nearly all the fighting in both places. Whatever attempts were made to connect these two fronts fell apart quickly. Cavalry action, meanwhile, took place mostly to the south, particularly around Catharpin Road and Brock Road.

Wilson's Division set out from Parker's Store heading south at five in the morning on May 5. Lieutenant Colonel John Hammond's 5th New York Cavalry was pulled aside with orders to watch the ground west of Parker's Store until Warren's V Corps arrived to take over. When Hammond pushed a probe westward along the Orange Plank Road, his men ran into Confederate troops. Reinforcements did not stop the Union soldiers from being pushed back toward Parker's Store, and it soon became clear they were up against the bulk of Hill's Third Corps infantry.

Hammond had only about five hundred troopers under him. Recognizing that thick woods and a much larger infantry force made mounted combat foolish, he dismounted his men and spread them into a skirmish line armed with Spencer repeaters. The regiment gave ground slowly, retreating eastward past Parker's Store along the Orange Plank Road. Once Confederate troops pushed east of that point, the rest of Wilson's cavalry division found itself cut off from Meade and from Warren's corps.

At six that morning, Warren's V Corps started south across farm lanes toward Parker's Store. Confederate infantry was spotted to the west near the turnpike, and word reached Meade. Grant's instructions were blunt: if a chance arose to strike part of Lee's army, it should be taken without delay for preparation. Believing he faced only a division rather than a full corps, Meade stopped his march and ordered Warren to attack, while Hancock was held back at Todd's Tavern. Meade suspected the Confederate move was simply meant to delay him rather than provoke a real battle, yet he still froze his whole army in place, precisely what Lee had hoped he would do. In fact the force in front of him belonged to Ewell's Second Corps, whose men were digging in along the western edge of the clearing called Saunders Field. Lee had cautioned Ewell against advancing too quickly, since his corps was beyond support from Hill and Longstreet's First Corps had not yet reached the field.

Warren approached the field's eastern side with Griffin's division astride the road on the right and Wadsworth's division on the left. Crawford's division sat too far off to the left near Chewning Farm to help, while Robinson's division waited in reserve nearer Wilderness Tavern. Getting the divisions into proper alignment took time, and there was worry over the exposed condition of Griffin's right flank. Compounding matters, once a division moved off the roads and fields it vanished from view entirely, leaving its commander unsure whether his lines matched the others. Wright's 1st Division of Sedgwick's VI Corps was marching south along the Germanna Plank Road toward Spotswood Road to guard Warren's right, and Warren asked to delay his assault until Wright arrived. By noon Meade had grown impatient and ordered Warren forward without waiting on Sedgwick's corps. Warren's men reached Saunders Field around one o'clock. Facing them along the turnpike west of the field was Johnson's Confederate division, which also stood watch over the Spotswood Road approach used by Sedgwick. Farther south behind Johnson lay Rodes's division, and Early's division waited in reserve still farther west.

By the time Warren's line closed on the enemy, gaps had opened throughout it, and some regiments ended up facing north rather than west. The fears about the right flank proved accurate. As Griffin's division moved forward, Ayres's brigade anchored the right but struggled to keep formation amid what soldiers called a blizzard of lead. Enfilading fire from Confederate brigadier Leroy A. Stafford's brigade struck their right, sending every regiment but the 140th and 146th New York fleeing back east across the field. To Ayres's left, Bartlett's brigade fared better

Fighting ends

By dawn on May 7, Grant confronted the daunting prospect of assaulting well-built Confederate fortifications. His cavalry had positioned itself south of the infantry engagement at Todd's Tavern. Rather than order another frontal assault, Grant decided to outmaneuver his opponent. His plan called for moving south along the Brock Road toward the crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House, a move that would place his army squarely between Lee's forces and Richmond, compelling Lee to fight on terrain more favorable to the Union side. That day he issued orders for a night march intended to bring his troops to Spotsylvania, some 10 miles (16 km) southeast, by the following morning of May 8. When Lee realized Grant was pressing southward rather than retreating, he correctly anticipated the move toward Spotsylvania Court House and rushed his own army there first, throwing up formidable defensive works. What followed was the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, after which Grant's forces once again shifted position as the campaign pressed on toward Richmond.

Aftermath

Historians who fault the Union side point mostly to cavalry deployment that one writer labeled woefully inadequate. Sheridan chose Wilson, his least experienced general, to take the smallest of his cavalry divisions and scout the army's right flank, a questionable call given the circumstances. That unit, the 3rd Cavalry Division, simply lacked the numbers to screen the entire Union front, and Wilson ended up isolated from the rest of the army. Before that, his inexperience showed when he neglected to post pickets along the Orange Turnpike, leaving Union infantry caught off guard and helping push the army into fighting within the Wilderness itself. On May 6, pulling the cavalry back from Todd's Tavern further slowed the march toward Spotsylvania Court House. Still, some regimental leaders distinguished themselves, including Hammond, Brinton, and Lieutenant Colonel John W. Kester of the 1st New Jersey Cavalry Regiment. Union infantry likewise underperformed, with each of the four corps commanders achieving little of note.

On the Confederate side, attention centers on Lee, Longstreet, and Gordon. Lee positioned Ewell and Hill effectively against Meade but left Longstreet's First Corps stationed too far off. Hill and Ewell held their ground admirably on May 5 despite facing superior numbers. Yet Lee's choice to let Hill's Third Corps rest that evening rather than realign its lines drew sharp condemnation from historian Peter S. Carmichael, who termed it possibly the worst decision Lee ever made. Longstreet's troops performed capably under him, though their momentum faded quickly once he left the field after being wounded. Despite knowing that Jackson had died from friendly fire in that same forest a year before, Longstreet ignored warnings and rode into a similar volley, suffering wounds himself while others nearby were killed. Ewell's Second Corps also defended solidly, and Gordon's later complaint that Ewell and Early stalled his flanking movement does not hold up under scrutiny. Early had been given faulty word that Union IX Corps troops were advancing between the river and the Confederate left, which made him wary of committing his outnumbered men against dug-in Union infantry.

No clear victor emerged from the Wilderness fighting, and neither army was pushed from the field. The National Park Service simply calls the outcome indecisive. One historian argues that Lee technically prevailed by fighting Grant to a draw, yet also notes that the battle ultimately hurt the Confederacy since it lost the initiative and Lee's ability to go on offense was effectively gone afterward. What draws particular notice from scholars is that Grant, unlike earlier Union commanders, did not withdraw north across the nearby river once the fighting ended. Instead his army pressed southward, keeping pressure on Lee and threatening Richmond, the Confederate capital. It marked the first occasion in a Virginia campaign when the Army of the Potomac kept advancing after its opening engagement, and spirits rose high enough that soldiers were singing as they marched south. Sherman described the move as the grandest act of Grant's life, adding that he now believed the rebellion would be crushed. The engagement bore out something Longstreet had once warned Lee about Grant, that he would keep fighting every day and every hour until the war's end. By April 1865, Lee's forces were starving and desperately short of supplies, hemmed in between the armies of Sheridan and Meade. On April 9, 1865, following the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse, Lee surrendered his army to Grant.