Battle of the Wilderness

Background

In March 1864 Ulysses S. Grant, the victor of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, was promoted lieutenant general and given command of all the Union armies. His plan was to attack on every front at once and to destroy the Confederate armies rather than capture places. He made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac instead of in Washington, leaving George Meade in formal command but making the decisions himself. His instruction to Meade was plain: "Lee's army will be your objective. Where he goes, there you will go also." Lincoln, facing an election in the autumn, needed a decisive victory.

Grant consolidated the Army of the Potomac into three infantry corps under Hancock, Warren and Sedgwick, gave the cavalry to Philip Sheridan, and attached Burnside's independent IX Corps. On 4 May the army crossed the Rapidan: cavalry went over at Germanna Ford before dawn and engineers laid pontoon bridges there and at Ely's Ford, Hancock's II Corps using Ely's and Warren and Sedgwick Germanna. By the afternoon the leading troops were camped in the Wilderness, the dense second-growth scrub where Hooker had come to grief a year before.

Grant did not want to fight there. He meant to push south-east through it into open country on 5 May, where his numbers would count. Lee, watching from his signal stations, saw the advance and ordered his army east into the thickets: Ewell by the Orange Turnpike, Hill by the Orange Plank Road, and Longstreet, who had farther to come, with orders that the others should avoid a general engagement until he arrived.

The armies

The Union force numbered about 118,000–120,000 men with some 316 guns, nearly twice Lee's strength. Hancock's II Corps alone had more than 28,000 men present for duty at the end of April. The cavalry was poorly used at the outset: James Wilson's division did not properly picket the roads, which helped Lee approach unseen. The divided command, Grant deciding and Meade commanding, soon showed strain: on 5 May an angry outburst by Charles Griffin at Meade deepened Grant's doubts about the army's leadership.

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had about 61,000–66,000 men and was outgunned and short of supplies. Its three infantry corps were under Longstreet (First Corps, with only two divisions, Field's and Kershaw's, present), Ewell (Second Corps) and A. P. Hill (Third Corps), with Stuart's cavalry. Since Jackson's death Ewell and Hill had been promoted to corps command, and both had disappointed; the NPS judges Longstreet the only experienced senior commander Lee had left.

The ground favoured the defender and the smaller army. The Wilderness covered some seventy square miles of tangled undergrowth. A Union soldier, Warren Goss, wrote that "No one could see the fight fifty feet from him." Artillery was almost useless away from the roads and the few clearings, such as Saunders Field on the Turnpike and the Widow Tapp's farm on the Plank Road. Units lost touch, lines bent at odd angles, and exploding shells set the dry woods on fire.

The battle

CDB90 treats the battle as one engagement, number 202 (THE WILDERNESS), from 07:15 on 5 May to 20:00 on 6 May. Times are approximate and sources differ by up to an hour.

5 May: Saunders Field. Warren's V Corps moved off at about 06:00 and soon learned of Confederate infantry on the Orange Turnpike. Ewell's men halted and dug in along the western edge of Saunders Field. Warren protested that the thickets made attack difficult, and several hours passed before he went in, at about 13:00. His men took heavy losses crossing the open field. Griffin's division broke into the Confederate line, but Ewell's front overlapped the Union right and Gordon's brigade sealed the gap. The field caught fire and burned some of the wounded. Sedgwick's VI Corps came up north of the Turnpike at about 15:00 and extended the fight into the woods, where it settled into a bloody stalemate.

5 May: the Plank Road. Hill's corps marched east at sunrise, delayed by a single Union cavalry regiment. Meade sent Getty's VI Corps division to the vital Brock Road–Plank Road crossroads; it arrived about noon and threw Hill's leading troops back a few hundred yards. At about 16:00 Getty attacked Heth's division on a shallow ridge, and Hancock's divisions, arriving in stages, joined in at about 16:30. Lee committed Wilcox's division. Fighting went on until after dark, and by nightfall Hill's line was battered and tangled, in places only yards from the enemy. Hill let his exhausted men rest rather than re-form, expecting Longstreet by morning. Longstreet, camped at Richard's Shop about ten miles away, set off after midnight and lost his way.

6 May, dawn: Hancock breaks Hill. Ewell attacked Sedgwick at about 04:45. At 05:00 Hancock struck along the Plank Road with about 23,000 men, while Wadsworth was to strike Hill's northern flank, and overran Hill's corps. Poague's guns at the Widow Tapp's farm held on with Hill himself helping to work them. At about 06:00 Longstreet's leading troops arrived. Lee rode forward with Gregg's Texas Brigade and was forced back by his own men; of about 800 Texans who charged, more than 500 did not return. Field's division north of the road and Kershaw's south of it drove Hancock several hundred yards back. Burnside's IX Corps, meant to strike Hill's rear, fell hours behind and was stopped by Ramseur's brigade; Grant ordered it south to join Hancock.

6 May, late morning: the railway cut. At about 10:00 Lee's chief engineer, Martin L. Smith, found the bed of an unfinished railway running past Hancock's left. Longstreet's aide Moxley Sorrel led four brigades along it, and at about 11:00 they attacked north through the thickets while Longstreet pressed along the Plank Road. Hancock later said his line was rolled up "like a wet blanket". Wadsworth was mortally wounded and the Union left fell back to its breastworks on the Brock Road. Riding forward around midday, Longstreet's party was fired on by Mahone's Virginians, returning from the flank attack, who took it for Federals. Longstreet was shot through the neck and Micah Jenkins killed, about five miles from where Jackson had fallen the year before. The attack stalled while Lee reorganised.

6 May, afternoon and evening. Burnside attacked at about 14:00 without result. Lee assaulted the Brock Road line at about 16:15; where the log works caught fire, Confederates planted flags on them but were driven out within minutes. At about 17:30–18:00 Gordon's brigade struck Sedgwick's exposed right flank north of the Turnpike, captured Generals Seymour and Shaler and drove the line back about a mile before darkness ended the attack.

7 May. Neither side attacked. Fires swept the woods between the lines and burned wounded men where they lay. After dark Grant ordered the army south by the Brock Road towards Spotsylvania Court House.

Aftermath

Union losses were about 17,500–18,000, the official return 17,666; Confederate losses are much less certain, from about 8,000 to 13,000, with Alfred Young's 11,033 the most detailed modern count. Combined, the battle ranks among the five costliest land battles of the war. The Union lost Generals Wadsworth and Alexander Hays killed and Seymour and Shaler captured; the Confederates lost John M. Jones killed, Leroy Stafford and Micah Jenkins killed or mortally wounded, and Longstreet out of action for five to six months.

Tactically the battle was a Confederate success, and for the Army of the Potomac it repeated the pattern of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: cross the river, be beaten, retreat. The difference was Grant. At the crossroads on the night of 7 May he turned right, towards Richmond, not left, towards the fords. The soldiers, who had assumed another retreat, cheered him. Lee anticipated the move and reached Spotsylvania first, and the campaign of attrition began.

The arguments since have been about command. Union critics point to the cavalry and the corps commanders; Confederate ones to Hill's failure to re-form on 5 May, Longstreet's late arrival and Ewell's slowness on 6 May. Encyclopedia Virginia notes that former Confederates later used Ewell to deflect blame from Lee, much as they did over Gettysburg, and that the label "butcher" attached to Grant after Cold Harbor, not here. Part of the field lies in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Wargaming it

The Wilderness is two linked battles on parallel roads: the Turnpike, where Warren and Sedgwick faced Ewell, and the Plank Road, where Hancock and Getty fought Hill and then Longstreet. The whole works at brigade level with turns of 30 minutes to an hour; the Plank Road on the morning of 6 May, Saunders Field on 5 May, and Gordon's evening flank attack each make a good regimental game.

Terrain rules carry the game. Visibility should be very short, formed bodies should drift and lose touch, artillery should be confined to roads and clearings, and fire should start and spread in the brush, threatening wounded and blocking movement. Hidden deployment or a referee is almost essential, both for Longstreet's arrival and for the unfinished railway bed, which the Confederates must discover before they can use it.

The timing decisions make it. The Union player must decide whether to attack before his corps are concentrated and how long to wait for Burnside. The Confederate player must hold a long, thin front with a gap between Ewell and Hill until Longstreet arrives. The what-ifs are good: Longstreet arriving on time, or Hancock's dawn attack starting before he does; Hill entrenching on the night of 5 May; Longstreet unwounded and pushing on to the Brock Road; Gordon's attack launched hours earlier. Victory conditions should reward the Union for keeping the army intact and its route south open, not just for holding ground.

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