Existing comment:
The Wilderness was many things -- depending on when a particular tract had been timbered. The area along the Orange Plank and Germanna Plank roads had been cut less than 20 years before the Civil War, and so was likely the most tangled. Other areas hadn't been timbered for decades and probably looked much like the Wilderness of today.
Small farms, like Widow Tapp's on the south end of the battlefield, characterized the Wilderness. Mrs. Tapp leased her land from J. Horace Lacy, owner of Ellwood. |