5 Essential Books on the Battle of the Wilderness

Horace Porter, a staff officer for Ulysses S. Grant, provided a chilling description of the Battle of the Wilderness:

“Forest fires raged; ammunition-trains exploded; the dead were roasted in the conflagration; the wounded roused by its hot breath, dragged themselves along with their torn and mangled limbs, in the mad energy of despair, to escape the ravages of the flames; and every bush seemed hung with shreds of blood-stained clothing. It was as though Christian men had turned to fiends, and hell itself had usurped the place of earth.”

The Battle of the Wilderness was the first epic clash between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. The Union lost 17,666 men and the Confederates lost 11,125 over the course of those two hellish days in May 1864.

The stakes for the battle couldn't have been higher. If Grant failed in his spring campaign, then it's quite likely that President Lincoln wouldn't have been reelected later that fall. And that may have resulted in a negotiated peace of some kind. If Lee was unable to stop Grant, on the other hand, then it would only be a matter of time before the Confederacy lost the war.

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