Posted on 05/13/2024 6:41:42 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
TODD's TAVERN, Va., Sunday, May 8, 1864.
The details of the wonderful three days' battle of the Wilderness, which closed last night just as the blood-red sun went down behind the margin of the Rapidan, will have given you some idea of the labyrinth of action through which its course ran, and the maze of tactics out of which it was resolved; but the battle of the Wilderness must remain, for the present, undescribed, for the reason that it is really indescribable. I remember a pregnant observation of Gen. ROSECRANS that with us war is only “bushwhacking on a large scale." Now, if this is true of the kind of ground on which many of our battles have been fought, the analogy holds still more forcibly in the wild, tangled pine woods in whose thickets and along whose margins the prodigious Indian fight of Thursday, Friday and Saturday raged.
No man can claim that he saw this battle, and although undoubtedly it had a line and formation of its own, it would puzzle even the Commanding General to lay it down on the map. There is something horrible and yet fascinating in the mystery shrouding this strangest of battles ever fought -- a battle which no man could see -- and whose progress could only be followed by the ear. It is, beyond a doubt, the first time in the history of war, that two great armies have met, each with at least two hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, and yet placed in such circumstances as to make this vast enginery totally useless. Not a score, of pieces were called into play in the whole affair, and I may mention, it as a fact strikingly illustrative of this battle, that out of the three thousand wounded in the hospital
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Localities of the Late Battles on the Rapidan and the Po – 2
The Great Campaign: The Gigantic Struggle on the Rapidan and the Po – 3-6
Victory! A Decisive Battle: Lee’s Army Routed – 6-7
Reports from Washington: The Fighting Renewed on Wednesday – 7
Reports from Philadelphia: Lee Out of Supplies and Orders his Men to Capture them – 7
Gen. Butler’s Army: Beauregard at Petersburgh with Twenty-five Thousand Men – 7-8
Important from Gen. Sherman: The Rebels Driven to Rocky Ridge and Buzzard Roost Mountains – 8
The Red River Expedition: Co-operative Naval Movements – 8-9
From Sherman’s Army: Prospects of the Campaign in Georgia – 9
The War in the Southwest: Important from the Red River – 9-10
Nurses for the Army – 10
Gen. Butler’s Department: The Negroes and How They Are Employed – 10-11
Our Nashville Correspondence: Care of the Government for its Sick and Wounded – 11
The President on Gen. Grant’s Success – 12
News from Washington: Special Dispatches to the N.Y. Times – 12
Proceedings of Congress – 12-13
The Campaign – 13
Editorial: The Work to be Done – 13-14
Editorial: What will Come of It? – An Essential Difference – 14
To All Patriots – 14
Lee’s Army – 14-15
The People and the Army – 15
Grant’s First Proposition and His Last – 15
Rebel Opinions and Loyal Facts – 15
The Red River Fleet – 15
The Danes and Their Maiden City – 15
American Affairs in the House of Commons – 15
Garibaldi and the Working Classes – 15
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