Existing comment:
Horror in the Forest:
In the woods on the south end of the battlefield -- along the Orange Plank Road -- the horror of the Wilderness would find its full expression.
For much of May 5 and 6, the fighting on the north end of the field -- along the Orange Turnpike -- raged in and around Saunders Field, a rare open place in the Wilderness.
On the south end of the field, along the Plank Road, the Wilderness offered no such relief. For two days fighting raged in an unyielding forest. Fires threatened battling men, consumed the wounded, and sometimes forced battle lines to give way. If one place embodied all the horrors of the Wilderness, it was the woods astride the Orange Plank Road.
Lee to the Rear:
On the morning of May 6, 1864, as his army stood on the verge of defeat, Robert E. Lee rode amongst a brigade of Texas troops, urging them forward. The Texans refused to move so long as Lee was with them. "Lee to the rear!" they shouted. Lee did go to the rear, and the Texans plunged into the forest and helped drive the Union lines back.
Lee's personal involvement in the battle reflected the growing desperation he and the Confederacy likely felt -- his own army diminished, faced with a formidable foe. More and more, the success of the Confederacy hinged on the success of Robert E. Lee and his army, and Lee knew it.
"The wounded soldiers lay scattered among the trees. They moaned piteously ... [They] were haunted with the dread of fire... I saw one man, both of whose legs were broken, lying on the ground with his cocked rifle by his side and his ramrod in his hand, and his eyes set on the front. I knew he meant to kill himself in case of fire -- knew it as surely as though I could read his thoughts."
-- Private Frank Wilkeson, 11th New York Light Artillery |