Battle of the Wilderness

Welcome, traveler, to a landscape that once swallowed entire armies. As you stand near the northern edge of this battlefield, near the old crossings of the Rapidan River, cast your mind back to the spring of eighteen sixty-four. …

As you walk into the expanse known as Saunders Field, bisected by the historic Orange Turnpike, visualize a rare clearing in an otherwise suffocating expanse of timber. This old cornfield, measuring some four hundred yards deep…

Moving slightly eastward along the Orange Turnpike, you arrive at the position held by the Union Sixth Corps, commanded by the beloved Major General John Sedgwick, affectionately known to his troops as 'Uncle John.' On the fifth…

You now stand at one of the most strategically crucial points on the entire battlefield: the intersection of the Orange Plank Road and the Brock Road. In the trackless wasteland of the Wilderness, whoever controlled this dusty…

Step now into the open expanse of Widow Tapp’s Field, the site of one of the most desperate crises Robert E. Lee ever faced. …

Remain here in Widow Tapp’s Field, where the tension of that blood-red morning reached its absolute zenith. Just as the Federal infantry stepped into the clearing, an incredible sound emerged from the woods to the west: the…

Venture now a short distance south of the Orange Plank Road, into an area characterized by strange, unnatural earthen mounds. This is the Unfinished Railroad bed, a monument to a brilliant tactical discovery that violently…

Return now to the edge of the Orange Plank Road, a dusty thoroughfare that witnessed some of the most poignant tragedies of the entire war. During the chaotic Confederate surge late in the morning of May sixth, the command…

Stand now before the remnants of the Brock Road defenses, where the battle degenerated from a conventional military engagement into an apocalyptic nightmare. It was late afternoon on May sixth. …

As you walk back toward the edge of the woods, leaving the scarred earth behind, consider the monumental legacy of the two days spent fighting in this tangled maze. Tactically, some historians consider this first clash between…

Your journey through the Wilderness is now complete. You have walked the same suffocating, wooded paths where thousands of young men navigated the terrifying transition from traditional linear tactics to the grim reality of…