May 5, 1864: Grant's Army of the Potomac and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia face off against each other in the Battle of the Wilderness

By the end of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was desperate for a general who could defeat Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In March 1864, he decided on the victor of Shiloh and Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was different from any of Lincoln’s previous generals. He was dogged, methodical, and had a plan on how to defeat Lee. Instead of attacking the Confederate capital of Richmond, he would take the fight directly to Lee’s army. In April, the newly promoted, Lieutenant General Grant rode to down to link up with the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. The former commander of the army, George Gordon Meade nervously awaited his replacement’s arrival. When Grant arrived, he decided that Meade would keep command of the Army of the Potomac with his direction. He further assigned, his friend, William Tecumseh Sherman his old command of armies in the Western Theatre of the war. He gave the command of the Union cavalry to Philip H. Sheridan, a commander known for his short stature and tenacity. He devised a coordinated strategy for all three armies to engage in order to bring the war to swift, decisive conclusion. Sheridan’s cavalry was tasked with clearing the Confederates out of the Shenandoah Valley. Sherman’s army would move southeast from Tennessee into Georgia to attack Joseph E. Johnston’s army. For the Army of the Potomac, they were tasked with directly attacking Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In May, Grant’s army met Lee’s army, in the Battle of Wilderness.

On May 4, the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River and converged on the edge of the Wilderness in Spotsylvania County. Lee’s army was already spread throughout the Wilderness in anticipation of Grant’s attack. Lee was outnumbered, but knew Grant would have to venture in the thickly wooded Wilderness to fight him. Battle commenced early on the 5^th near the Orange Turnpike. Further toward the South, a section of both armies engaged on the Orange Plank Road. By the evening, both skirmished had ended in stalemate. The following day, Grant’s forces resumed the attack, much to the same result. After the day’s battle had ended, Lee decided to dig in to ward off Grant’s attacks. Instead of attacking directly, Grant decided to shift southward to Spotsylvania Court House in order to turn Lee’s flank. Both armies would engage there over the following weeks.

The Battle of the Wilderness proved to be a pyrrhic victory for the South, and a strategic coup for the North. While the causalities were not unheard of, the manner in which they were inflicted was unseemly. The battle sparked several small forest fires in the heavily wooded area. The soldiers who were not luckily to be killed instantly, were subjected to death from smoke inhalation or ever burning to death in the conflagration. Grant was derided for wasting Union lives; but Grant was no butcher. He understood the costs it would take to destroy Lee’s army. The battle cost Lee’s army many causalities that he could not replace. The battle while it was truly a stalemate, it marked the beginning of the end of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and the Civil War itself.