Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864
A Civil War historian recounts the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—a bloody and horrifying conflict in the Wilderness of Virginia.

Known simply as the Wilderness, soldiers called the seventy square miles of dense Virginian forest one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom.” Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror.

Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the Overland Campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Thick underbrush made for difficult movement and low visibility. And these challenges were terrifyingly compounded by the outbreak of fires that burned casualties and left both sided blinded in a sea of smoke.

Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said. Another called it “Hell itself.”
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Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864
A Civil War historian recounts the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—a bloody and horrifying conflict in the Wilderness of Virginia.

Known simply as the Wilderness, soldiers called the seventy square miles of dense Virginian forest one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom.” Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror.

Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the Overland Campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Thick underbrush made for difficult movement and low visibility. And these challenges were terrifyingly compounded by the outbreak of fires that burned casualties and left both sided blinded in a sea of smoke.

Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said. Another called it “Hell itself.”
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Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864

Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864

Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864

Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864

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Overview

A Civil War historian recounts the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—a bloody and horrifying conflict in the Wilderness of Virginia.

Known simply as the Wilderness, soldiers called the seventy square miles of dense Virginian forest one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom.” Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror.

Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the Overland Campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Thick underbrush made for difficult movement and low visibility. And these challenges were terrifyingly compounded by the outbreak of fires that burned casualties and left both sided blinded in a sea of smoke.

Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said. Another called it “Hell itself.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781611213164
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Publication date: 05/20/2022
Series: Emerging Civil War Series
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 192
Sales rank: 578,797
File size: 14 MB
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About the Author

Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the online resource Emerging Civil War. A writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, NY, Chris is also historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield in central Virginia. The series editor of the award-winning Emerging Civil War Series, he has authored or co-authored a dozen books on the Civil War, and his articles have appeared in major Civil War magazines.
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