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 . . . — — Map (db m5390) HM
At battle's 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 . . . — — Map (db m155886) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m5392) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m6062) HM WM
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 . . . — — Map (db m4966) HM
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. . . . — — Map (db m4967) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m155923) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m4969) HM
"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 . . . — — Map (db m4970) HM
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 . . . — — Map (db m7516) HM
(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 . . . — — Map (db m7523) HM
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, . . . — — Map (db m155885) HM
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. . . . — — Map (db m7529) HM
