← Memoirs, diaries and letters
memoir · by a contemporary
Meade's headquarters, 1863-1865
Theodore Lyman (1833–1897), 1922
Named on the page for Battle of the Wilderness.
machine-read Machine-read (OCR) from a scanned book at the Internet Archive: expect misread words and names. The scan itself is at the library.
draft Matched to the battle automatically; not yet reviewed.
Passages that name the battle; the whole book is at Internet Archive.
5–7 May 1864
Battle of the Wilderness
FROM
The Wilderness to 'Appomattox
THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTSYLVANIA
The result of this great Battle of the Wilderness was a drawn fight, but strategically it was a success, because Lee marched out to stop our advance on Richmond, which, at this point, he did not succeed in doing. We lost a couple of guns^ and took some colors. On the right we made no
THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTSYLVANIA
and excitement. General Ward was relieved from his command, for misbehavior and intoxication in presence of the enemy during the Battle of the Wilderness. I had always supposed him to be a brave but rough man. . . .
ANOTHER WINTER
Sunday night the first division came from City Point on the cars, having come straight from the neighborhood of Winchester by car and boat. The next morning we were treated to the sight of the familiar red crosses, and soon General Wheaton rode up,, to see the General and report. . . . Very loath were the Sixth Corps bucks to leave the valley (where they had plenty of sheep and chickens and victories, and no fighting except in the regular battles), and come to a place with which they only connected more or less fighting, day and night (rather more than less), much dust, heat, and drought, and no particular victories. However, they find things better now, and will doubtless get contented in time. What must have gratified them was that they relieved Crawford's division of the 5th Corps, on the line, and took possession of their very nice log huts, which had been carefully constructed uniformly in all the brigades. Crawford's people by no means saw the thing in the same light. They took down their canvas roofs and rolled them up with dudgeon, and marched off to take a temporary camp, previous to the Weldon road expedition. I rode along the breastworks as the red crosses marched into the deserted camps, and observed the aspect of grim satisfaction with which the new comers went about, look- ing into the abandoned huts. The luxurious Crawford had his nice log cabin taken down and carted to his new locality. "However," said Wheaton, "I sleptin Crawford's kitchen, and that was good enough for me." On Tuesday came the 3d division, also with a new commander, for brave General Ricketts lies at Washington, still suffering from his wound; and General Seymour, he who was taken the second day of the Wilderness, has the command. Sey- mour is a fiery and irrepressible sort of party, and enraged the inhabitants of Charlottesville beyond measure. When
Public domain. Text from Internet Archive.