Virginia Vignettes

The Wilderness is associated with scenes of fire. During the Civil War battle, exploding shells sparked flames that burned the wounded. “It is not supposed that many lives were lost in this terrible manner,” a witness wrote, “but there were some poor fellows, whose wounds had disabled them, who perished in the dreadful flame.” In Cease Firing (1912), the Virginia-born novelist Mary Johnston described the night of May 5-6, 1864: “Night was not so black in all parts of the Wilderness. In parts it was fearfully red. The Wilderness was afire.” Because of scenes like these, this small patch of woods has loomed large in the American imagination. In a memoir, Union veteran Morris Schaff pointed out that the Wilderness was the site of two important setbacks for the Confederacy – the death of Stonewall Jackson in 1863 and the wounding of James Longstreet a year later. “And was there a Spirit of the Wilderness,” Schaff wondered, “that, as tears gathered in eyes of fathers and mothers over separation from children and home, recorded an oath to avenge the wrong? Else why did the Wilderness strike twice at the Confederacy in its moments of victory? Who knows!”

Further Reading:

Stephen Cushman, Bloody Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle (1999)

This Vignette Provided By

Brendan Wolfe, associate editor of Encyclopedia Virginia