Hell Itself

The Wilderness of today looks different than it did in 1864. Then it was a patchwork of second-growth forest. Brush obscured, briars grabbed, and thickets disrupted the battle lines. One solder described the combat here as "bushwhacking...on a grand scale." For men accustomed to fighting in open woods and fields, the tangled landscape of the Wilderness translated into sheer horror. Smoke from thousands of rifles hovered motionless in the air, choking the combatants. Enemy lines rose up, fired a volley, then disappeared into the haze. Many men never even saw their foes; they simply fired at muzzle flashes in the undergrowth. When the dry leaves caught fire, wounded soldiers burned to death. To a Union officer it seemed that "Hell itself had usurped the place of earth."The woods would light up with the flashes of musketry, as if with lightning, while the incessant roar of the volleys sounded like the crashing of thunder-bolts. Brave men were falling like autumn leaves, and death was holding high carnival in our ranks."Lieutenant Robert Robertson, Union staff officer.