Battle of the Wilderness • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
‘The Climax’ wayside marker is along the walking trail at Stop Eight, not far from Brock Road.
From the marker:
The Climax
The Battle of the Wilderness climaxed here in the twilight of May 6, 1864. After a day of seesaw fighting in the woods behind you, the Confederates mounted a final effort to take the Plank Road-Brock Road intersection, 100 yards to your left. Thousands of Confederate troops tore through these woods, wrapped in the smoke of burning leaves and underbrush. Thousands of Union soldiers awaited them behind earthworks, the remains of which still stand about 40 yards ahead of you.
As the Confederates reached this point, piles of brush put here by Union soldiers slowed them. Union musket fire whipped through their ranks. Fire creeping eastward toward the Union works prevented their movement forward. Only in one place – the works opposite you – did the Confederates break through the Union line. But a Union counterattack quickly sealed the breach. The final Confederate attack ended in bloody repulse.
From the caption for the rage drawing on the left:
Near here a section of Union log works caught fire, causing the Union troops defending them to fall back. Confederate troops surged through the flames and planted their flag on the abandoned works, but within minutes Union counterattacks drove them out.
From the caption for the drawing on the right:
An artist made the above sketch of the Union earthworks along the Brock Road on May 7, 1864, one day after Lee’s assault.
