THE BATTLES IN THE WILDERNESS
With the coming of May, 1864, the two great commanding geniuses of
the War--Lee and Grant--met each other in conflict. The exact forces
commanded by each have never been ascertained. But the estimates of
the various writers on the subject, North and South, do not differ
sufficiently, to make their differences of much consequence. In round
numbers Lee had, on the Rapidan, about 66,000 men. The army with which
Grant opposed him numbered approximately 120,000. These estimates
do not include either the Confederate forces defending Richmond and
Petersburg on the one hand, or Butler's strong army south of the
James on the other. Lee had called Longstreet back from the region of
Atlanta, and had thus in effect massed all the force that he could hope
to employ in that campaign. With this force substantially half as large
as that of his adversary, he determined to accept Grant's offer of
battle in the field. To that end he moved his army on the second of May
to the western edge of that peculiar region known as the Wilderness.
There he awaited the coming of Grant.
This Wilderness, it should be explained, is a region of peculiar
difficulty by reason of the tangled mass of second growths which have
replaced the original forest, cut away a century or more ago as fuel
for iron works. In extent the region is about a dozen miles wide in
either direction. It borders the Rapidan, and extends to the open
country in front of Chancellorsville, where the battle of that name had
been fought a year before.
At midnight on the third of May the Army of the Potomac crossed
the Rapidan on five pontoon bridges, and marched at once into the
Wilderness, where it remained during the whole of the fourth in order
that its enormous train of 4,000 wagons and the reserve artillery of
more than 100 guns might be protected in their passage across the
river. It was Grant's hope to move by his left flank, out of the
Wilderness, passing around his enemy, and placing himself with all
his force between that enemy and the Confederate capital. But with
that promptitude which was characteristic of all his operations, Lee
anticipated this movement and struck at Grant's flank early on the
morning of the fifth.
The assault was made in the midst of the Wilderness--in a thicket so
dense that it was impossible at many points for the men on one side to
see those on the other, a hundred feet away. Every forward or backward
movement involved a struggle through a tangle of vines and underbrush
and young forest growths so thickly standing as to render all progress
difficult, and all regularity of formation impossible. On either
side no corps or regiment or company could know what its own friends
were doing on its right or its left; no officer could tell whether
he was being supported on his flank or had been abandoned there; no
steadiness or cohesion was possible. No alignment could be maintained.
It is doubtful to-day that any officer on either side in that struggle,
from Grant and Lee at the top to the smallest commander at the other
end of the line, ever had a clear-cut idea of the course that that
day's fighting took. It consisted of a series of irregular assaults
made with desperate valor, and repelled with equal determination. It
resembled nothing so much as a battle in the dark, the one thing which
all commanders most dread, and most sedulously avoid.
Very naturally the fighting was at short range at every point. Scarcely
anywhere on that tangled field did the opposing forces discover each
other's positions until they came within short pistol-shot range.
The slaughter was therefore tremendous and at no time could either
commanding general fully satisfy himself as to how the battle was going
or what its result was likely to be or even what his own or the enemy's
position was.
The two greatest fighting machines that America has yet produced
had met in battle, in the midst of such a maze of tangled growths
as nowhere else exists except in marshes where such a meeting is
impossible by reason of a lack of firm ground for the men to stand
upon. Here at least, there was firm ground.
Grant had not expected to encounter his enemy here. He had supposed
that Lee would move out of the Wilderness and choose more favorable
ground upon which to receive the assaults of his enemy. Accordingly,
the Federal commander had already pushed a part of his army under
Hancock toward the edge of the Wilderness, hoping by a rapid march to
place it between the Confederate army and the Confederate capital. No
sooner, however, was Lee's assault developed than Grant saw clearly
that he must fight a determined battle here on this most unsuitable
ground. Lee had decided this in the obvious expectation of finding
Grant unready. But readiness under all circumstances was a part and an
important part of Grant's character and intellectual make-up. It was
his habit of mind to take things as he found them and to do the best
he could in every case. He hurriedly called Hancock back and accepted
battle in the jungle.
The fighting was desperate throughout the day, and at the day's end no
decisive advantage rested with either party. Lee had been fighting with
only a part of his army, for the reason that Longstreet with that first
corps upon which Lee always relied for the more desperate work of war
did not reach position in time to take part in the struggle of that day.
At nightfall it was obvious that the contest must be resumed in the
morning and indeed, each of the great commanders intended that it
should be, each planning to strike first if possible. In preparation
for the coming morning's work both sides spent the night in diligent
fortifying with such means as were at hand.
Grant ordered an assault all along the line to be made at five o'clock
in the morning. Lee, still more alert, struck out with his left an hour
earlier. He was still weak on his right wing, for lack of Longstreet,
who had not yet come up. Grant, recognizing this fact, planned to
hurl Hancock upon the Confederate right at the appointed hour of five
o'clock in the morning. By an adroit handling of Rosser's cavalry, the
Confederates managed to deceive Hancock into the belief that Longstreet
was making a flank movement against the Federal left, similar to those
which Jackson had made with such destructive effect in former battles.
To meet this and to avoid a disaster like that which had befallen
Hooker at Chancellorsville, Hancock promptly detached a considerable
part of his force, and sent it to his left, thus weakening his column
of attack.
Nevertheless he struck hard enough to drive back the weak Confederate
right for more than a mile. Then Longstreet, who had undertaken no such
flanking expedition as that which Hancock had supposed, came up and
threw his veterans precipitately upon his foe.
These two--Longstreet and Hancock--were both old fighters and very
stubborn ones, and they had under their command the very best men there
were in their respective armies. When they met in direct conflict at
close quarters, therefore, the fighting was as obstinate as any that
had yet occurred on any field since the beginning of the war.
Hancock was driven back and the losses on both sides were great,
including a conspicuously large loss of officers from the lowest to
the highest grade. General Wadsworth on the Federal side, and General
Jenkins on the Confederate, were killed, and Longstreet himself was
shot through the neck and shoulder so that he had to be carried from
the field.
Having thus lost his great lieutenant, General Lee went to that quarter
of the field and took personal command in Longstreet's place. It was
then that one of the most picturesque incidents of the war occurred.
Impressed with the desperate necessity of carrying a certain peculiarly
difficult position, General Lee seized the colors of a Texas regiment
and undertook to lead the perilous assault in person. The troops loudly
protested against such an exposure of their beloved general to danger,
and the Texas colonel, in behalf of his men and amid their applause,
solemnly promised that they would carry the point at all costs and
all hazards if Lee would go to the rear. Finally, Lee's bridle rein
was seized, and he was forcibly taken to the rear, while the Texans
advanced to the charge with the battle cry of "Lee to the rear!" upon
their lips. The incident has been exquisitely celebrated in song by the
poet John R. Thompson.
Under inspiration of this incident, the Confederates made an assault
of desperate determination, and at one point broke through the Federal
lines. They captured the position for the recovery of which Lee had
sought to sacrifice himself, but the result was achieved at tremendous
cost of life, and their further efforts to dislodge Hancock were
bloodily repelled.
By some means--probably by reason of the fierce firing on either
side--a forest fire now broke out in Hancock's front, and the
flames quickly communicated themselves to the log revetments of his
fortifications. The heat and the smoke forced the Federals to retreat,
fighting as they went against the Confederates who pursued them with
fury. Sadly enough, besides the dead there were large numbers of
wounded men, both Federal and Confederate, lying among the burning
bushes and underbrush of that mile-wide stretch of wilderness over
which the flames swept. Here misfortune and sheer accident wantonly
added to the necessary horrors of war another horror not contemplated
or intended by either commander although that, like all other risks
of battle, is included in the contract which the soldier makes with
his country. These men, wounded and helpless as they lay amid the
flames that circled and enwrapped them, must have realized as nobody
unaccustomed to the horrors of war can, the truth of Sherman's
statement that "war is all hell."
Night ended the struggle, and the men on both sides retired to their
entrenchments to await the events of the morrow. On neither side was
there the least suggestion of demoralization or of shrinking from the
work that was yet to be done. On neither side were there skulkers in
the rear as there had been at Manassas, at Shiloh and at nearly every
other great battle of an earlier time. The volunteers who composed the
armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia were real soldiers now,
inured to war, and desperate in their determination to do its work with
out faltering or failure. This fact--this change in the temper and
morale of the men on either side--had greatly simplified the tasks set
for Grant and Lee to solve. They knew their men. They knew that those
men would stand against anything, endure slaughter without flinching,
hardship without complaining, and make desperate endeavor without
shrinking. The two armies had become what they had not been earlier in
the contest, perfect instruments of war, that could be relied upon as
confidently as the machinist relies upon his engine scheduled to make
so many revolutions per minute at a given rate of horse power, and with
the precision of science itself.
It will be remembered that as Jefferson Davis approached the
battlefield of Manassas, where the Confederates had won a conspicuous
victory, the multitude of panic-stricken fugitives through whom
he passed was such as to convince him that Beauregard had been
disastrously defeated. It will be remembered that at Shiloh when
Grant made his way to the front he was appalled by the presence under
shelter of the river banks of a multitude of fugitives, demoralized
and panic-stricken, who ought to have been at the front lying on their
bellies and firing at the enemy. Nothing of the kind occurred on either
side at the Wilderness. The war school had perfectly educated its
pupils.
The losses in these two days of fighting in the Wilderness have never
been accurately ascertained, and never will be. The best estimates
fix them at about 15,000 or 16,000 men on either side. These losses
included, as has already been said, a remarkable number of officers of
high grade on both sides. Nothing could be more significant than this
of the determination with which the battle was fought.
In the strictest sense of the military term this had been a drawn
battle. Neither side had overcome the other and neither had driven the
other into retreat. Yet each side has claimed it as a victory upon
grounds which are logical enough in themselves. The Confederates
held that by checking Grant and baffling his plan of marching out
of the Wilderness, and forcing Lee to a fight in the open, they had
accomplished a very distinct victory. The Federals held, that, as they
had succeeded in placing their army securely south of the Rapidan and
in a position to carry on a further campaign, and that as they had not
been so far damaged in the fight as to feel themselves under compulsion
of retreat, they were entitled to regard the general result of the two
days' fight as a victory for themselves.
There is no doubt whatever that at the end of this struggle the
Confederates expected Grant to retire to the northern side of the
river, as all his predecessors had done after similar conflicts. When
the next morning dawned and Grant still stood firm in their front
they were astonished to find him there. Among the men no explanation
of his continued presence in the wilderness was forthcoming. In the
mind of Lee there was an explanation ready and sufficient. The great
Confederate general is reported to have said to his staff on that
morning, "Gentleman, at last the Army of the Potomac has a head."