- Date
- May 5, 1864 – May 7, 1864
- Location
- Spotsylvania County and Orange County, Virginia
- Result
- Inconclusive
- Part of
- American Civil War
- Conflict
- U.S. Civil War
About the battle
The Battle of the Wilderness was fought on May 5–7, 1864, during the American Civil War. It was the first battle of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The fighting occurred in a wooded area near Locust Grove, Virginia, about 20 miles (32 km) west of Fredericksburg. Both armies suffered many casualties, nearly 29,000 in total, a harbinger of a war of attrition by Grant against Lee's army and eventually against the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. The battle was tactically inconclusive, as Grant disengaged and then continued his offensive. Grant attempted to move quickly through the dense underbrush of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, but Lee launched two of his corps on parallel roads to intercept him.
From the Wikipedia article “Battle of the Wilderness”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Result, date and location from the article’s infobox and Wikidata.
