Existing comment:
A Military Scene
The Battle of the Wilderness
As one of the few large open areas in the Wilderness, the broad fields north and east of Ellwood assumed instant importance during the battle here. While fighting raged a miles to the west, the fields around Ellwood filled with artillery and wagon trains. Provost guards kept watch over Confederate prisoners; surgeons established field hospitals for the wounded; and rough teamsters held their mule-drawn wagons in readiness to carry ammunition to the front.
In the yard of the house and extending northward along the ridge, Union batteries lobbed shells at targets more than a mile away. The fusillade touched off an angry response from Confederate guns, prompting one staff officer to suggest that Grant move his headquarters further to the rear. The Union commander had other ideas. "It strikes me it would be better to order up some artillery and defend the present position," he replied.
"All the space between the garden, the back of the house, and the barns, was loosely occupied by the bivouacs of the headquarters orderlies, clerks, teamsters, officers' servants, cooks...etc. who on a campaign form quite a colony... ."
-- Lt. Morris Schaff, Union staff |