Battle of the Wilderness • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The markers are at Ellwood, the Lacy family home near Tour Stop One. The marker is south of the house.
Union Headquarters wayside marker
Text from the marker:
Union Headquarters
Ellwood stood in the midst of the Wilderness, a dark, forbidding forest characterized by stunted trees and densely tangled undergrowth. When the Confederates challenged General Ulysses S. Grant’s advance through the Wilderness on May 5, 1864, the Union commander made his headquarters just a few hundred yards north of here, along the Orange Turnpike (modern Route 20). For the next three days Ellwood, a quiet farm in a desolate region, suddenly found itself the center of national attention.
Union Fifth Corps commander Gouverneur K. Warren occupied the first-floor to the left of the front door throughout the battle. Here, on the evening of May 5, he received reports of staggering casualties from his chief surgeon. “It will never do to make a showing of such heavy losses,” he observed. The bloodshed was just beginning. By the time the Army of the Potomac reached the James River, six weeks later, it had incurred more than 60,000 casualties.
From the caption to the photo at bottom left:
Gouverneur Warren used this room as his office during the battle.
A Military Scene wayside marker
Text from the marker:
A Military Scene
As one of the few large open areas in the Wilderness, the broad fields north and east of Ellwood assumed instant importance during the battle here. While fighting raged a miles to the west, the fields around Ellwood filled with artillery and wagon trains. Provost guards kept watch over Confederate prisoners; surgeons established field hospitals for the wounded; and rough teamsters held their mule-drawn wagons in readiness to carry ammunition to the front.
In the yard of the house and extending northward along the ridge, Union batteries lobbed shells at targets more than a mile away. The fusillade touched off an angry response from Confederate guns, prompting one staff officer to suggest that Grant move his headquarters further to the rear. The Union commander had other ideas. “It strikes me it would be better to order up some artillery and defend the present position,” he replied.
“All the space between the garden, the back of the house, and the barns, was loosely occupied by the bivouacs of the headquarters orderlies, clerks, teamsters, officers’ servants, cooks…etc. who on a campaign form quite a colony… .”
– Lt. Morris Schaff, Union staff
Text from the caption to the drawing:
Artist Alfred Waud penciled this view of Ellwood on May 7, 1864, during the Battle of the Wilderness. He was then at the Wilderness Tavern, one-half mile ahead of you. The numbered sketch shows Union artillery batteries (#8) in reserve around the house.
Location of the markers
The markers are on the southeast side of Ellwood (the opposite side to the parking area).