The Wilderness
Wounded escaping from the burning woods of the Wilderness. May 5 - 7 1864.
In early May the 1864 Overland Campaign would erupt at a small crossroad in Spotsylvania County. It would be the first of a series of bitter battles in the effort to force confederate submission as Grant pushed his army toward Richmond. The Union Army suffered more than 17,500 casualties over the two days of fighting.
Battlefield sketch artist Alfred R. Waud was commissioned to give Harper’s Weekly readers a personal look at America’s Civil War and was renowned for getting close to the fighting.
“Alfred Waud was recognized as the best of the Civil War sketch artists who drew the war for the nation’s pictorial press. Waud could render a scene quickly and accurately, with an artist’s eye for composition and a reporter’s instinct for human interest. At a time when the shutterspeed of cameras was not fast enough to capture action, the public’s only glimpse of battle came from the sketch artists. Waud’s apparent courage under fire and passion for the men he depicted drew him dangerously close to the fighting, and his drawings portray more intimately than those by any other artist the drama and horror of this country’s most devastating conflict. ”
Wounded being carried away. Battle of The Wilderness May 5 - 7, 1864.
Escaping from the fire in the woods at the Battle of the Wilderness.
Skirmish in the Wilderness. Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, 42nd.
Artist notes: “The Bucktails did some fine work on Crawfords front, but being left behind when Crawford suddenly fell back and not notified of that fact, they had rather a bad time. Sketch shows the line forcing a way through the brush to the edge of the woods.”
Gen. Wadsworth just before his death. Wadsworth would be mortally wounded May 6, 1864 and die two days later.
Distributing ammunition under fire. 5th corps front May 6.
Rebel prisoners captured in the charge of Gen. Wrights Corps.
Further Reading:
The Wilderness Battlefield Trust — The bloody Battle of the Wilderness, in which no side could claim victory, marked the first stage of a major Union offensive toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, ordered by the newly named Union general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant in the spring of 1864.
Battle of the Wilderness Wiki — The Battle of the Wilderness, fought May 5–7, 1864, was the first battle of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's and General George G. Meade's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War.