| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Flank Attack! — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | These woods saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Battle of the Wilderness. On May 5, then again on May 6, 1864 ragged Union and Confederate battle lines surged back and forth on both sides of the Orange Plank Road. The stalemate here finally broke late on the morning of May 6, when Confederate General James Longstreet managed to move troops opposite the Union left flank, in front of you. At 11 a.m., Longstreet’s men surged through the woods ahead of you screaming the rebel yell. Panic . . . — Map (db m5390) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Burying the Dead — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | At battles end, more than 2,000 Union dead lay scattered through the Wilderness. The first major effort to bury the dead came more than a year later, when a Union regiment received orders to proceed to the Wilderness and inter those Union soldiers whose remains still littered the landscape. For a week burial parties combed the woods, gathering up as many remains as they could find. They placed the bones in wooden coffins and buried them in two temporary graveyards; one near here beside the . . . — Map (db m5443) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Longstreet Felled — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | It was the most successful day of James Longstreet’s career. He had arrived on the Wilderness battlefield early in the day to find the Confederate army in full retreat and in danger of being destroyed. His troops had prevented disaster. Now, at midday, he had just launched a flank attack that knocked the Union army back in confusion. As Longstreet galloped down the road at the head of his victorious troops – near this spot – he inadvertently rode between two Confederate lines . . . — Map (db m5392) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — James S. Wadsworth |
| | Brigadier General and Brevet Major General United States Volunteers commanding the 4th Division V Corps Army of the Potomac was mortally wounded near this spot May 6, 1864 and died two days later in the field hospital of Hill’s Confederate Corps: He fell attempting desperately to resist a Confederate advance which threatened the strategic Plank- Brock Road intersection. — Map (db m6062) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — No Turning Back — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | When the armies departed the Wilderness, they left behind a disfigured landscape. Trenches twisted like earthen snakes through the woods, and blackened leaves marked the paths of fires. Along the Brock Road, noted one soldier, trees "were scarred by bullets from their roots to their tops, and in great spaces the whole tops were mown down by bullets as with a scythe." Corpses, too, littered the landscape. "Thousands of men were dead and wounded," wrote one officer, "and that vast wilderness was . . . — Map (db m4966) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — On to Richmond! — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | Before the Wilderness, battlefield stalemate meant retreat by one side or the other - a return to the starting point to try again another day. But not here. Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant rendered stalemate in the Wilderness irrelevant. On the night of May 7, 1864 as the woods around you still smoldered, Grant ordered the Union army not backward, but forward - south toward Spotsylvania Court House and eventually Richmond. As Union soldiers quietly left the earthworks in front of you, . . . — Map (db m4967) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Horror on the Orange Plank Road — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | Some of the Civil War's heaviest fighting occurred along the Orange Plank Road on May 5 and 6, 1864. One of two major roads passing through the Wilderness, the Plank Road became a magnet for both armies as they struggled to maneuver through the tangled forests. Battle lines surged up and down the Plank Road corridor, littering the roadside woods with fallen men. Fires scorched the forest, consuming the dead and wounded indiscriminately. Though violent and horrifying, the fighting here ended in . . . — Map (db m4968) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Valuable Crossroads — Battle of the Wilderness |
| | Just after noon on May 5, 1864, Union troops raced toward this intersection. With Confederates from General A.P. Hill's corps sweeping down the Orange Plank Road from the west, blue-clad troops under George W. Getty arrived here just moments before the Confederates. The Federals immediately started building earthworks to defend the crossroads. The remnants of those works are still visible along the Brock Road. Later on May 5, men of the Union Second Corps launched attacks westward from these . . . — Map (db m4969) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — 12th Regiment New Jersey Volunteers 1862 - 1865 |
| | "We can not dedicate we can not consecrate we can not hallow this ground the brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract." The State of New Jersey merely marks the surrounding twenty acres of ground on which the 12th New Jersey Volunteers so gallantly fought for the preservation of the Union, May 5 and 6, 1864. dedicated May 30, 1942 — Map (db m4970) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Hell Itself — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | The Wilderness of today looks different than it did in 1864. Then it was a patchwork of second-growth forest. Brush obscured, briars grabbed, and thickets disrupted the battle lines. One solder described the combat here as "bushwhacking...on a grand scale." For men accustomed to fighting in open woods and fields, the tangled landscape of the Wilderness translated into sheer horror. Smoke from thousands of rifles hovered motionless in the air, choking the combatants. Enemy lines rose up, fired . . . — Map (db m7516) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — The Vermont Brigade |
| | (Front): In these woods, during the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5 and 6, 1864, Vermont's "Old Brigade" suffered 1,234 casualties while defending the Brock Road and Orange Plank Road intersection. (Back): "The flag of each regiment, though pierced and tattered, still flaunts in the face of the foe, and noble bands of veterans with thinned ranks, and but a few officers to command, still stand by them, and they seem determined to stand so long as there is a man to bear their . . . — Map (db m7523) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Echoes Homeward — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | Once schoolmates, friends, and neighbors, they came here as soldiers from Yorkville, South Carolina; Pen Yan, New York; Clarksville, Virginia; Barre, Vermont; and a hundred other towns, North and South. Their deaths in these woods on May 5 and 6, 1864 devastated familes and communities hundreds of miles away. In Birmingham, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburg, Almira Patterson (right) learned of the death of her husband in these woods when she received a letter from one of his subordinate . . . — Map (db m7526) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — The Climax — The Battle of the Wilderness |
| | The Battle of the Wilderness climaxed here in the twilight of May 6, 1864. After a day of seesaw fighting in the woods behind you, the Confederates mounted a final effort to take the Plank Road-Brock Road intersection, 100 yards to your left. Thousands of Confederate troops tore through these woods, wrapped in the smoke of burning leaves and underbrush. Thousands of Union soldiers awaited them behind earthworks, the remains of which still stand about 40 yards ahead of you. As the Confederates . . . — Map (db m7529) |
| Virginia (Spotsylvania County), Spotsylvania — Here Fell General Alexander Hays |
| | Here fell General Alexander Hays 3rd Div. 2nd Corps. U.S.V. May 5, 1864. Erected by General Alexander Hays Post No. 3 Department of Pennsylvania G.A.R. and Davis Star Camp, Sons of Veterans — Map (db m6064) |
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