The first big clash between Grant and Lee took place 162 years ago today...

The Battle of the Wilderness.

This was the first big showdown between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in the Overland Campaign. Grant had taken overall command of all Union armies and was determined to keep pressure on Lee instead of retreating every time he got bloodied. The Union Army of the Potomac (about 102,000 engaged under George Meade, with Grant calling the shots) crossed the Rapidan River and headed south with the mind of getting around Lee's right flank Lee, with roughly 61,000 men in the Army of Northern Virginia, wasn't about to let Grant get around him and into open country. He decided to hit the Yankees in the Wilderness, a nasty, tangled mess of thick woods, underbrush, and second-growth timber near Chancellorsville. The terrain was perfect for the defender: it canceled out Union numbers and artillery and turned the fight into a brutal, close-quarters brawl.

May 5, 1864, was a messy, inconclusive slugfest on two main fronts. On the Orange Turnpike, Gouverneur K. Warren’s V Corps ran into Richard Ewell’s Second Corps near Saunders Field (one of the few clearings on the battlefied). The Confederates dug in quickly on the west side. Meanwhile, Warren attacked around 1 PM despite his doubts about the terrain. Some Union units actually broke through and killed Confederate Brigadier General John M. Jones, but John B. Gordon’s brigade and others counterattacked hard. Fighting turned into chaos as units got lost in the brush and fires started burning the wounded where they lay. Sedgwick’s VI Corps fed in some troops, but Ewell held his ground.

Farther south on the Orange Plank Road, A.P. Hill’s Third Corps clashed with George Getty’s division (VI Corps) and Winfield S. Hancock’s II Corps reinforcements at the Brock Road intersection. Heavy fighting went on into the night. James Longstreet’s First Corps was still marching up and still hadn't arrived as darkness fell, so Lee was fighting short-handed all day.

May 6, 1864, was even bloodier and more dramatic. At dawn, Hancock launched a massive attack on the Plank Road and drove Hill’s exhausted corps back in confusion and it looked like the Confederate right might collapse. Then James Longstreet arrived in the nick of time with his fresh First Corps. He launched a powerful counterattack, including a famous flank move through the woods south of the Plank Road. It was all looking good for the Confederates until Longstreet was accidentally shot in the neck by his own men. As a result, the attack lost all momentum.

Meanwhile, on the Union right, John B. Gordon launched a night attack that broke through two Union brigades and caused some panic at headquarters. The woods caught fire again from all the shooting, and the smoke and flames made everything even worse. By the end of the day it was another bloody stalemate in the thickets.

May 7 was mostly maneuvering and skirmishing. Grant decided he wasn’t going to retreat back across the Rapidan like previous Union commanders. Instead, he ordered the army to sidestep left and head southeast toward Spotsylvania Court House. Lee recognized what Grant was trying to do and raced to get there first.

The Battle of the Wilderness was over. Union losses amounted to around 17,500-18,000 (killed, wounded, and captured/missing). Confederate losses totaled around 11,000–13,000. Both sides took a beating in just three days, but the Wilderness was especially horrific because of the fires and the inability to maneuver or even see who you were shooting at.

Tactically the battle was a draw. Lee stopped Grant cold and inflicted heavy losses. But strategically it was a win for Grant. He didn’t turn tail and run. He kept coming. That was the big difference. The Wilderness set the tone for the rest of the Overland Campaign: brutal, grinding attrition. Lee hurt the Union army badly, but he couldn’t stop it or replace his own losses as easily.