Battle of the Wilderness • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The “A.P. Hill Escapes Capture” and “Key Terrain” wayside markers are at the site of the Chewning Farmhouse. They are about 0.25 mile along a walking trail from Stop Five of the Wilderness Battlefield Auto Tour.
A.P. Hill Escapes Capture wayside marker
Text from the marker:
A.P. Hill Escapes Capture
On the morning of May 6, General A.P. Hill stretched his battle lines across the Chewning farm, closing a dangerous gap in the Confederate line. Before Hill’s troops arrived, a Union regiment broke into the clearing from the east, startling the general and his staff. Hill calmly directed his men, “Mount, walk your horses, and don’t look back.” They did, avoiding capture. As soon as his men were out of danger, Hill sent for a brigade and retook the clearing.
Later that day General Lee conferred with Hill on the front porch of the Chewning house, located directly in front of you. As the two generals spoke, staff officers peered through a hole cut in the roof and spotted large numbers of Union guns heading south, toward Spotsylvania Court House. After two days of fighting in the Wilderness, Grant was moving on. Lee would follow.
Caption to the drawing:
The Chewning Farm (“Mount View”) as it looked at the time of the Civil War.
Key Terrain wayside marker
Text from the marker:
Key Terrain
The fighting in the Wilderness centered on two thoroughfares: the Orange Turnpike and the Orange Plank Road. Between them yawned a gaping void of dense trees and brush, broken only by a few fields and the track of the Parker’s Store Road, still visible 50 yards to your left. The most important clearing was the Chewning farm. If the Union army could seize this clearing, it would be in position to divide the Confederate forces and defeat them individually.
Gen. Samuel W. Crawford’s division of the Union Fifth Corps held the Chewning farm on May 5, but it had to abandon the position to support Union troops fighting astride the Orange Turnpike. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s Ninth Corps tried to penetrate the gap the next morning but became bogged down in the heavy woods. By the time it reached the Chewning farm, the clearing was firmly in Confederate hands. The Union army’s best chance for victory had vanished.
Captions to the portrait photographs:
Samuel W. Crawford
Ambrose E. Burnside
Location of the markers
The markers markers are at the site of the Chewning Farmhouse, about 0.25 mile along a walking trail from Stop Five of the Wilderness Battlefield Auto Tour.