Battle of the Wilderness • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
There are a variety of monuments and markers on the Wilderness battlefield to help the visitor understand what happened here in May of 1864.
Monuments on the Wilderness Battlefield
There are only a handful of monuments on the Wilderness Battlefield. It was a battle that most survivors probably preferred to forget, fought in terrain where most men didn’t know their location, and just the first in a series of deadly battles that went on almost without pause all summer. The two states, two regiments, and three leaders remembered on these stones must serve as the representatives of many more who fought and sacrificed here in 1862.
Battle of The Wilderness
12th New Jersey Infantry Regiment
140th New York Infantry Regiment
Major General Alexander Hays
Colonel James Nance
Brevet Major General James Wadsworth
Lee to the Rear!
State of Texas
Vermont Brigade
Historical Markers
There are several generations of historical markers on the Wilderness Battlefield. Two of the more unusual markers are the large cast bronze compasses found at Stops Three and Eight on the Auto Tour, each giving the distance and direction to important locations for the battle.
Wilderness Compass (Orange Plank Road and Brock Road)
Wilderness Compass (Saunders Field)
1950s Historical Markers
In the 1950s the National Park Service responded to the explosion of baby boom families taking to the roads of America by creating cast aluminum markers set in a wooden framework. They were sturdy and weather resistant – most are still in service sixty years later – and could be read from a nearby car. The castings could be very detailed and painted to create battlefield maps.
Wilderness Campaign – May 5
Wilderness Campaign – May 5 afternoon
Wilderness Campaign – May 5-6
Wilderness Campaign – May 6
Wayside markers and Orientation markers
The latest generation of markers use modern developments in printing technology and materials. Graphic, colorful and relatively inexpensive, the markers bring the pages of a history textbook onto the battlefield.
A Military Scene
A Wild, Wicked Roar
An Uneasy Partnership
Archeology at Elwood
Battlefield Becomes Park
Burying the Dead
Capture of Winslow’s Battery
Confederate Earthworks
Chewning Farm
Crisis in Tapp Field
Crisis in the Wilderness
Dark, Close Wood
Echoes Homeward
Ellwood
First Blood Saunders
Flank Attack
Gordon Flank Attack
Grant Comes to Virginia
Grant’s Headquarters
Hell Itself
Higgerson Farm
Hill Escapes Capture
Horror on the Orange Plank Road
In the Nick of Time
Key Terrain
Lee-to-the-Rear
Longstreet Felled
No Turning Back
On to Richmond
Saunders Field
Texans Attack
The Climax
The Confederate Line
Union Headquarters
Valuable Crossroads
Widow Tapp’s Field
Widow Tapp House
You can also go to any of the monuments or markers from the Auto Tour pages