Federal wounded in the Wilderness campaign, at Fredericksburg. Grant lost
17.3 per cent. of his numbers engaged in the two days' battles of the
Wilderness alone. Lee's loss was 18.1 per cent. More than 24,000 of the
Army of the Potomac and of the Army of Northern Virginia lay suffering in
those uninhabited thickets. There many of them died alone, and some
perished in the horror of a forest fire on the night of May 5th. The
Federals lost many gallant officers, among them the veteran Wadsworth. The
Confederates lost Generals Jenkins and Jones, killed, and suffered a
staggering blow in the disabling of Longstreet. The series of battles of
the Wilderness and Spotsylvania campaigns were more costly to the Federals
than Antietam and Gettysburg combined.
[Illustration: ONE OF GRANT'S FIELD-TELEGRAPH STATIONS IN 1864