Existing comment:
Fight for the Crossroads:
On the south end of the battlefield, the armies struggled to control the intersection of the Orange Plank Road and the Brock Road -- the road south. For two days, the roar of gunfire from unseen battle lines poured from the woods west of the crossroads.
Battle lines degenerated into tangled, disconnected clots of men, where the security of numbers and the specter of glory vanished. "We were compelled to crawl like snakes whilst working our bodies through some devilish entanglement," recorded a Pennsylvanian.
Fires raged. For veterans, this burned and ravaged landscape, populated by the dead, came to define the Battle of the Wilderness.
Franklin Gallard of the 2d South Carolina and his children, Maria and David. Franklin was killed in the fighting along the Plank Road on May 6, 1864.
As Frank was marching into battle, I rode up to him and spoke to him. I told him that I trust that his life would be spared, but above all, that he was prepared spiritually for anything that might happen. He shook my hand with evident feeling and we parted. An hour or two after I met him... he was brought out near the same spot, but he was no longer capable of talking. I have reproached myself bitterly for not having done more...
-- William P. Dubose to Maria Gaillard, June 17, 1864
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