Wilderness, Battle of the

The Battle of the Wilderness, fought May 5–7, 1864, is the first battle of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

Both armies suffer heavy casualties, a harbinger of a bloody war of attrition by Grant against Lee's army and, eventually, the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia.

The battle is tactically inconclusive, as Grant disengages and continues his offensive.Grant attempts to move quickly through the dense underbrush of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, but Lee launches two of his corps on parallel roads to intercept him.

On the morning of May 5, the Union V Corps under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren attacks the Confederate Second Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, on the Orange Turnpike.

That afternoon the Third Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. A.P.

Hill, encountered Brig.

Gen. George W. Getty's division (VI Corps) and Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps on the Orange Plank Road.

Fighting until dark is fierce but inconclusive as both sides attempt to maneuver in the dense woods.At dawn on May 6, Hancock attacks along the Plank Road, driving Hill's Corps back in confusion, but the First Corps of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet arrives in time to prevent the collapse of the Confederate right flank.

Longstreet follows up with a surprise flanking attack from an unfinished railroad bed that drives Hancock's men back to the Brock Road, but the momentum is lost when Longstreet is wounded by his own men.

An evening attack by Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon against the Union right flank causes consternation at Union headquarters, but the lines stabilize and fighting ceases.

On May 7, Grant disengages and moves to the southeast, intending to leave the Wilderness to interpose his army between Lee and Richmond, leading to the bloody Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

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