The Battle of the Wilderness was the first battle of the Overland Campaign during the Civil War. Often overlooked because it was indecisive, it is historically significant. It definitively identified Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant as the leading man in the fight for the Union and set the stage for the move to the James River and the taking of Richmond, Virginia, where the Confederate Army ultimately fell in defeat. Grant planned the battle between May 3rd and 4th of 1864 and the battle itself occurred on May 5th and 6th. This battle, the first between Grant and General Robert E. Lee of the Confederates, was the first major engagement between arguably the two greatest leaders of the Civil War. The battle took place in the tangled woods …show more content…
They were outmanned, having only 62,000 men and were also scrambling for supplies, but past engagements suggested that these shortcoming mattered little. Lee had appointed A.P. Hill and Richard Ewell as his corps commanders, despite their lack of previous success. Lieutenant General James Longstreet, a proven commander and logistician, was moving his forces into reserve. The confederates had the advantage of having withheld the Wilderness in previous battles and had a more intimate knowledge of the land than the incoming Union forces. Arrayed facing east, Ewell’s men along Orange Turnpike and A. P. Hill’s men along Orang Plank Road, they waited as Grant’s forces approached via the Rapidan River. Lee had easily spotted them and ordered his men “to march east and strike their opponents in the familiar and foreboding Wilderness, where Grant's legions would be neutralized by the inhospitable terrain.” The battle was fought in four phases, two occurring on each day. Phase I took place on May 5th from noon to 3:00p.m. and Phase II from 3 to 7p.m. Fighting concluded when darkness fell, both sides rushing reinforcement forward. On May 6, phases I and II occurred at approximately the same times as the previous day, noon and 3:00p.m.,