Battle of the Wilderness • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The waysde markers are just south of the Battle of the Wilderness Exhibit Shelter at Stop Two of the Wilderness Battlefield Auto Tour.
The “Capture of Winslow’s Battery” (left) and “Saunders Field” (right) wayside markers in front of the Wilderness Battlefield Exhibit Shelter
Saunders Field wayside marker
Text from the marker:
Saunders Field
“The last crop of the old field had been corn and among its stubble that day were sown the seeds of glory.”
Morris Schaff, USA Staff
Tucked away in the Wilderness’s trackless forest were several small clearings, where families with names like Higgerson, Chewning, and Tapp eked out a meager living tilling the region’s thin soil. Saunders Field, which surrounds you, was an abandoned corn patch in 1864. With the arrival of the armies on May 5, it would become a brutal smoking killing field.
The Orange Turnpike – modern Route 20 – bisected Saunders Field. A major thoroughfare early in the 1800s, the turnpike later lost much of its traffic to the Orange Plank Road. By the time of the battle, it was a quiet country road that – by dint of war – would become world famous.
Caption to the photo:
Saunders Field in 1866. A military cemetery is visible near the woodline; burials there were later removed to Fredericksburg.
The Capture of Winslow’s Battery waysde marker
Text from the marker:
The Capture of Winslow’s Battery
The guns were fought to the last, and lost as honorably as guns could be lost.
Colonel Charles S. Wainwright
Chief of Fifth Corps Artillery
The May 5 fighting in Saunders Field was waxing hot when Captain George B. Winslow received orders to rush two guns of Battery D, 1st New York Artillery, to the front to support Union attacks here. Dashing down the turnpike at a trot, Winslow’s men crossed the ditch in front of you, unlimbered their guns across the road, and began firing into the entwined masses ahead – for a time killing friend and foe alike.
Winslow quickly saw the impossibility of his task and ordered the cannon to withdraw. Before they could, Union infantry in Winslow’s front gave way, and Confederates surged toward the artillerists. The two limbered guns stalled in the ditch. Before gun crews could save the pieces, the Confederates were upon them. With their horses shot and their infantry support gone, the Union artillerymen had no choice but to abandon the guns.
Caption in the lower left corner:
This exhibit is dedicated in memory of John H. (Pete) Clark, Jr.
Location of the markers
The markers are just outside the Wilderness Battlefield Exhibit Shelter on the east side of the parking area. (38°19’02.9″N 77°45’23.0″W)
(go to the Stop 2 page)
(go to the Battlefield Auto Tour page)