This text is part of:
[423] Crawford's division (that of McCandless), which was to the left of Wadsworth, occupied an isolated position, and being nearly surrounded, it was easily driven from the field, with the loss of almost two whole regiments. Thus all the ground gained was given up, but the Confederates did not follow, and Warren assumed a new line somewhat in rear, but still in front of Old Wilderness Tavern and across the Orange turnpike. Such were the initial operations of the battle of the Wilderness. The opening was not auspicious. It gave Warren's corps a very severe shock, entailing upon it a loss of above three thousand men. The result left no doubt respecting the presence of the enemy in force, and early in the day, when the serious opposition encountered by the Fifth Corps made this manifest, General Grant, suspending the previously ordained marches of the corps, made dispositions to accept Lee's gage of battle. The Sixth Corps being directly in rear of the Fifth, was ready to take post on Warren's right. But Hancock's column, which was moving considerably to the left, and had that morning marched southward from Chancellorsville, was quite out of position for a battle in the Wilderness. Instructions were therefore sent recalling it to unite with the main body by a movement up the Brock road to its intersection with the Orange plankroad. This order was received by Hancock at eleven o'clock, and the countermarch immediately begun. He was then distant about ten miles.1
1 ‘At five A. M. on the 5th May, the Second Corps moved towards its designated position at Shady Grove Church, taking the road by the Furnace and Todd's Tavern. My advance was about two miles beyond Todd's Tavern, when, at nine A. M., I received a dispatch from the major-general commanding the Army of the Potomac to halt at the tavern, as the enemy had been discovered in some force on the Wilderness pike. Two hours later I was directed to move my command up on the Brock road to its intersection with the Orange plankroad.’ —Hancock: Report of The Battle of the Wilderness.
1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.