Into the Wilderness with the Arm

Into the Wilderness with the Army of the Potomac: Revised and Enlarged Edition. By Robert Garth Scott. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, first edition, 1985; revised edition, 1992. Pp. xv, 260.)

Robert Garth Scott is adamant that the Battle of the Wilderness, fought May 5-6, 1864, was one of the five key turning points of the American Civil War. In addition to the significance of the battle itself, Scott asserts that the terrain of the wilderness in northern Virginia made the campaign unique because many men lost sight of their officers as they fought in the woods and, as a result, “the outcome of the fight fell into the hands of the common soldiers” (xiii). Although he emphasizes the importance of the rank and file, much of Scott’s narrative centers on the generals in charge and on the corps commanders. As the title of his book indicates, Scott focuses on the Federal army, and in many ways this is a book about Ulysses S. Grant and his war strategy. Into the Wilderness is a narrative of the battle based on published primary and secondary material, though Scott—a nonprofessional historian—includes an analytical concluding chapter that places the battle in its historical context.

By the spring of 1864, Scott explains in his opening chapter, the Union army was facing a series of problems, including the lack of an effective overall commander. Lincoln had gone through a series of generals before he finally moved Grant from the western theater to be general-in-chief of Union forces. Scott argues that the strategy Grant put in place was critical in the North’s ultimate victory. Rather than each part of the army working independently, Grant insisted that they move simultaneously. If the North applied coordinated pressure on the South, the Confederacy would no longer be able to move support troops from one army to another that was under attack. Working in concert with one another, General William T. Sherman would move into Georgia while Franz Sigel, Benjamin Butler, and George Meade would lead a three-pronged attack against Lee’s army in Virginia. Grant’s move with Meade against Lee in northern Virginia led to the Battle of the Wilderness. Grant would have preferred to face Lee on more open ground, but he was not willing to miss an opportunity to engage Lee’s army.

Scott provides a detailed yet concise account of the two days of fighting, relating the challenges presented by the terrain of the area. Both days were filled with intense fighting and heavy casualties. Scott explains that the first day ended in a draw, as neither army had gained the advantage or much territory and both had reinforcements. Scott concludes that the difficult terrain—thick underbrush and woods with few open fields—made it evident that the battle would not be won or lost by any general’s tactics but rather “it would be decided by the sheer ability of the men in the ranks to stand up to the enemy’s violent musketry” (143). Like the first day, the second day of fighting ended in a stalemate; each side had come close to winning and losing the battle. On the morning of May 7, both armies were still on the field, and both were still a threat.

Although the Battle of the Wilderness ended in a tactical draw, Scott believes that it is still significant because of what Grant decided to do in its aftermath. He saves his analysis of the fighting for the last chapter, in which he evaluates the performances of military leaders and their tactics in the campaign. Compared to Lee, Grant had a better and more defined plan. Rather than retreat back across the Rapidan River, as his predecessors would have done, Grant pushed on towards Spotsylvania with the hopes of destroying Lee’s army and moving to Richmond, fulfilling his military creed to ‘keep moving on’ and not retreat. Scott also evaluates corps commanders, who were especially important in the campaign because of the nature of the fighting and the terrain. General Winfield S. Hancock stands out as an exceptional leader during the battle. In the southern army, Scott believes that General James Longstreet does not deserve the criticism he has received in civil war historiography. Although the North had a numerical advantage, Scott opines that the terrain and skills (and shortcomings) of leadership on both sides made it nearly impossible for either side to completely destroy the other.

The strength of Scott’s book is in his final chapter because it places the Battle of the Wilderness in the larger context of the war and explains why it is important. Although Scott displays some skills as a writer, his narrative is full of long blocks of quoted text from dispatches or soldiers accounts of the action. These certainly have merit, but Scott could have done a better job paraphrasing and incorporating smaller excerpts into his text. The appendices, which include orders for troop movements and a detailed chronology of the fighting, are helpful and interesting additions.

Jensen Branscombe

Texas Christian University

Into the Wilderness with the Army of the Potomac. By Robert Garth Scott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

When Ulysses S. Grant launched his Overland Campaign of 1864, he marched the Army of the Potomac to very nearly the same battlefield that held thousands of their comrades’ bones. The Battle of the Wilderness commenced nearly one year after the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the fighting occurred within five miles of its predecessor’s epicenter. While both actions ended with the Union army leaving the field, Chancellorsville was a defeat for Hooker; Grant, undeterred by the attrition suffered in the Wilderness, continued his push south toward Richmond and, eventually, Appomattox.

While the landscape always plays some role in the nature of the fighting, this axiom perhaps holds truer for the Battle of the Wilderness than many others. Narrow roads criss-crossed the region, but beside and between them was the worst overgrowth encountered by any army in the Civil War. Visibility was mere feet in any direction, and at its worst the musket fire ignited the almost impenetrably thick brush into a veritable holocaust. While Grant did not anticipate the 17,666 casualties his army suffered in this battle, Scott asserts the general purposefully engaged Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a bloody war of attrition. Indeed, Confederate losses totaled at least 7,500 – a figure much more difficult for the teetering Confederacy to replenish than were Grant’s losses for the Union.

As bad as the losses were, the battle might have ended worse for either side. As it began on 5 May, the Confederates first threatened to break the Union line near Plank Road, south of the Orange Turnpike. Meade, the titular commander of the Army of the Potomac (but generally under direct orders from Grant), had assigned Wilson’s cavalry to reinforce the line, but they were “pointless[ly]” (41) engaged on a different road. Meade saved the line by sending Hancock, deemed by Scott “without a doubt the best corps commander the army had” (50). This enabled the Fifth Corps to press forward, but their lines were soon shattered not by the Confederates but by the thick overgrowth. Chaos ensued as the woods caught flame – burning many of the wounded who lay in no-man’s land between the lines. Later that day, Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps pressed the attack north of the Turnpike, straining A.P. Hill’s Confederate lines to the brink. Nevertheless, virtually no territory changed hands that day.

Early on the 6^th, the Confederates launched an attack that upset intricate Union plans for a massed offensive. Despite taking the initiative, it was the Confederates who first felt pressure that day. Hancock led the Union counterattack near the Plank Road, threatening to break Lee’s army in half. Scott sympathizes with Hancock in reporting that only Burnside’s tardiness to the field kept the Union from this coup. Instead Hancock halted, and a lull settled over the field around 10 A.M. Thereafter, James Longstreet launched a brilliant flanking maneuver from the Plank Road, punching a hole in the long Union line; in its planning and execution, it very nearly mirrored Stonewall Jackson’s tactics at Chancellorsville. Yet also like Jackson, Longstreet and several of his staff were wounded by friendly fire – demonstrating to Scott that the Rebels were “as disorganized by victory as the Federals had been in defeat” (158). Although the maneuver retook roughly one-half mile from Union control, they rather quickly struck back as Potter’s 6^th New Hampshire reopened the Plank Road. Unfortunately for the Union, it was again up to Burnside to press this advantage; characteristically, he demurred.

Lee massed his forces for a final assault around 4:15 P.M., again upsetting Meade’s plans for a later Union strike. Confederate gains – aided equally by musket fire igniting the Union breastworks and the wind blowing the thick, choking smoke toward the Union lines – pressured the Union forces along Brock Road. Although they were arguably close to breaking Grant’s line there, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia simply could not bear its cost; Lee suspended his assault, and Meade cancelled his planned 6 P.M. strike. One final Confederate advance occurred at 8 P.M., but the Union lines held fast. Neither Grant nor Lee particularly cared to resume battle in the Wilderness, and both withdrew during the night. Grant – who smoked a personal-record 24 cigars during the tense day – marched south toward Spotsylvania Court House. Once Lee recognized this, the Confederate general cut a swath through the wilderness to reach the point slightly ahead of Grant. As Scott aptly points out, although the battle was a tactical draw the Union could consider it a success. Grant successfully engaged Lee in a war of attrition the Confederacy could not sustain, and, more directly, Grant continued to march on Richmond. As Lincoln might have said, Grant kept fighting.