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Battle of the Wilderness
The Battle of the Wilderness was the first battle of Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
The battle was fought in the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, an expanse of impenetrable scrub growth and rough terrain that encompassed more than a dozen square miles of Spotsylvania County in central Virginia. A number of battles were fought in its vicinity between 1862 and 1864, including the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. It is often said that the Wilderness and Chancellorsville were fought in the same spot, but this isn't really the case. The Wilderness was actually fought a few miles to the west, and only overlapped the old battlefield along the Brock Road on the United States (Union) Army's left flank.
On May 2, 1864, the Army of the Potomac, nominally under the command of Maj. Gen. George G. Meade but taking orders from Grant, crossed the Rapidan River at three separate points and converged on the Wilderness Tavern, which ironically was the concentration point for the Confederates one year to the day earlier when they launched their devastating attack on the Union right flank at Chancellorsville. But Grant chose to set up his camps to the west of the old battle site before moving southward. Unlike the Union army of a year before, Grant had no desire to fight in the Wilderness.
On the other hand, for Lee, who was massively outnumbered as usual (65,000 men to Grant's 123,000), accosting Grant in the Wilderness was imperative for the same reason as a year ago--in a battle contested in the tangled woods, the value of artillery was limited, and Lee's artillery possessed fewer guns of lower quality than Grant's.
While waiting for the arrival of Lieut. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps, which had been posted 25 miles to the west in order to guard against an attack on the crucial railroad junction of Gordonsville, Lee pushed forward his Second Corps, commanded by Lieut. Gen. Richard Ewell, and the Third Corps under the command of Lieut. Gen. A.P. Hill in an effort to engage Grant before he moved south. The Confederates were able to do this, and on May 5, both Ewell, on Lee's left flank, and Hill on the right clashed with Union soldiers.
On the left, Ewell met up with the Union V Corps under the command of Maj. Gen. G.K. Warren, and fought it to a standoff. For much of the day, Ewell's 20,000-man corps actually held a slight numerical advantage on this part of the field. But on the right, Hill was hit hard and driven back by the Union II Corps under Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock and a division from the VI Corps. He held his ground, however.
On May 6, Hancock, now commanding close to 40,000 men, resumed the attack on Hill's corps, while heavy Union reinforcements on Ewell's front prevented Lee from sending Second Corps men to aid Hill. By late morning, Hancock had driven Hill's corps back more than two miles and inflicted heavy casualties. With the Third Corps in dire straits, Lee began to look desperately for Longstreet, whose arrival had been expected hours before.
At around noon, Longstreet and the 20,000-man First Corps arrived at last, and its timing was perfect. Hancock's men were tired from six hours of fighting and disorganized. When Longstreet hurled his forces at the Union attackers, they recoiled and within two hours, the situation was totally reversed. Not only had Longstreet regained all the ground lost, he'd advanced one mile beyond that, forcing Hancock to regroup along the Brock Road. At a crucial moment in the fighting, Longstreet attacked through the cut of an unfinished railroad that had divided the Union forces in two, increasing the confusion. However, Longstreet did not have enough men to complete his victory, and the fighting soon petered out near the Brock Road. As the fighting wound down on this part of the battlefield, Longstreet was badly wounded and did not return to the Army of Northern Virginia for several months.
Just as this phase of the battle was ending, a division of the Second Corps under Maj. Gen. John Gordon launched one final assault on the Union right, partially turning the Army of the Potomac's flank and taking close to 1,000 prisoners. But darkness fell before the Confederates had a chance to press their advantage, and with that, the battle came to a close.
The battle is usually described as a draw; a better way of describing it would be as a tactical Confederate victory, but a strategic victory for the Union army. Lee inflicted heavy casualties on Grant's army, a total of 17,666 according to Army of the Potomac records. Lee, on the other hand, lost only about 7,500 men and ended the battle in possession of more of the field than it held when the fighting started. But at this point in the war, that wasn't sufficient. Grant, unlike Lee's previous adversaries, refused to retreat simply because he met a check. Lee would have to destroy the Army of the Potomac while he still had sufficient force to do so, and Grant was too skilled to allow that to happen.

Trees that got in the way of bullets
On May 8, Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to resume its advance, and less than a week later, the two armies clashed again 10 miles to the southeast, at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.
Additional Sources: www.wikipedia.org
saints.css.edu/mkelsey
www.oldgloryprints.com
usa-civil-war.com
www.thewildgeese.com
usa-civil-war.com
www.tsl.state.tx.us
www.harmonydesigns.com
www.multied.com
www.civilwarhome.com
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on May 13:
1314 Sergius of Radonesh Russian saint
1592 John Cloppenburg vicar/theologist
1655 Innocent XIII [Michelangiolo dei Conti] Italy, 244th Roman Catholic Pope (1721-24)
1717 Maria Theresa Empress of Austria (Wife of emperor Franz I)
1729 Henry William (Baron) Stiegel early American glassmaker
1769 Joâo VI King of Portugal (1816-26)
1792 Pius IX "Pio Nono" [Giovanni-Maria Mastai-Ferretti], Pope (1846-78)
1795 Joshua Ratoon Sands Commander (Union Navy), died in 1883
1830 Zebulon Baird Vance Governor (Confederacy), died in 1894
1842 Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan London England, composer (Gilbert & Sullivan)
1856 Peter Henry Emerson 1st to promote photography as an independent art
1857 Sir Ronald Ross England, pathologist (Nobel 1902)
1882 Georges F Braque French cubist painter (The Bike)
1904 Alfred Earle Birney poet
1907 Daphne du Maurier English writer (Rebecca, Parasites)
1908 Michael Richardson commandant (Home for Disabled Sailors)
1914 Joe Louis world heavyweight boxing champion (1937-49)
1926 Beatrice Arthur [Frankel] New York NY, actress (Maude, Dorothy-Golden Girls)
1927 Clive Barnes New York Times drama critic (New York Times, New York Post)
1931 Jim Jones "reverend"/heretic, poisoned over 900 in Guyana (Jonestown Massacre)
1937 Roger [Joseph] Zelazny sci-fi author (6 Hugos, Chronicles of Amber)
1938 Buck Taylor Hollywood CA, actor (Monroes, Gunsmoke)
1939 Harvey Keitel Brooklyn NY, actor (Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs)
1941 Ritchie Valens singer (Donna, La Bamba)
1941 Senta Berger Vienna Austria, actress (Cast a Giant Shadow)
1942 Vladimir A Dzhanibekov USSR, cosmonaut (Soyuz 27, 39, T-6, T-12, T-13)
1943 Mary Wells Detroit MI, singer (My Guy)
1945 Magic Dick [Richard Secondalwitz], harmonicaist (J Geils Band-Centerfold)
1946 Danny Klein New York NY, rock bassist (J Geils Band-Centerfold)
1950 Peter Gabriel London England, rocker (Sledgehammer, Shock the Monkey, Solsbury Hill, Genesis-The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway)
1950 Stevie Wonder [Steveland Morris] Saginaw MI, singer/songwriter (I Just Called To Say I Love You, Superstition, You are The Sunshine of My Life, My Cherie Amour)
1956 Aleksandr Yuriyevich Kaleri Russia, cosmonaut (Soyuz TM-14)
1961 Dennis Rodman NBA forward/freak (Chicago Bulls)
1973 Brooke Jennifer Gambrell Boise ID, Miss America-Idaho (1996)
Deaths which occurred on May 13:
0384 Servatius/Aravatius bishop of Tongeren, dies at 65+
1390 Robert II the Steward King of Scotland (1371-90), dies
1793 Martin Gerbert composer, dies at 72
1835 John Nash British town planner/architect (Regent's Park), dies
1839 Israel Ashkenazi of Shklov found Ashkenazic community (1815), dies
1864 Junius Daniel Confederate Brigadier-General, dies at 35
1884 Cyrus Hall McCormick inventor, dies
1916 Sholem Aleichem yiddish writer (Fiddler on the Roof), dies
1961 Gary Cooper 2 time Academy award winning actor (High Noon), dies at 60
1962 H Trendley Dean doctor (introduced fluoridation into water)
1972 Dan Blocker actor (Hoss-Bonanza), dies following surgery at 41
1985 Leatrice Joy silent screen star, dies in Riverdale (Bronx) New York NY at 91
1985 Selma Diamond actress/comedienne (Selma-Night Court), dies of cancer at 64
1988 Chet Baker jazz trumpeter, falls to death out of a hotel window at 59
1991 Jimmy McPartland jazz cornetist, dies of cancer at 83
GWOT Casualties
Iraq
13-May-2003 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Staff Sergeant Patrick Lee Griffin Jr. Ad Diwaniyah Non-hostile - ordnance accident
US Lance Corporal Nicholas Brian Kleiboeker Al Hillah (near) Non-hostile - ordnance accident
13-May-2004 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Brandon C. Sturdy Fallujah (near) Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Private 1st Class Brian K. Cutter Camp Al Asad [Al Anbar Prov.] Non-hostile - unspecified cause
Afghanistan
A Good Day
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
On this day...
0535 St Agapitus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
0609 Pope Boniface I turns Pantheon into Catholic church
1110 Crusaders march into Beirut causing a bloodbath
1497 Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola
1559 Excavated corpse of heretic David Jorisz burned in Basel
1568 Mary Queen of Scots is defeated by English at battle of Langside
1607 English colonists (John Smith) land near James River in Virginia
1637 Cardinal Richelieu of France creates the table knife
1643 Battle at Grantham: English parliamentary armies defeat royalists
1643 Heavy earthquake strikes Santiago Chile; kills 1/3 of population
1777 University library at Vienna opens
1779 War of Bavarian Succession ends
1787 Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay
1830 Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president
1835 1st foreign embassy in Hawaii is established
1846 US declares war on México, 2 months after fighting begins
1861 Queen Victoria announces England's position of neutrality
1864 Atlanta Campaign-Battle of Resaca GA
1874 Pope Pius IX encyclical "On the Greek-Ruthenian rite"
1888 Brazil abolishes slavery
1888 DeWolf Hopper 1st recited "Casey at the Bat"
1890 Lord Salisbury offers Germany Helgoland in exchange for Zanzibar, Uganda & Equatoria
1891 17th Kentucky Derby: Isaac Murphy aboard Kingman wins in 2:52¼
1905 James J Jeffries retires as boxing champion
1911 New York Giant Fred Merkle is 1st to get 6 RBIs in an inning (1st)
1912 Royal Flying Corps is established in England
1913 1st 4 engine aircraft built & flown (Igor Sikorsky-Russia)
1917 1st appearance of Mary to 3 shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal
1918 1st US airmail stamps issued (24¢)
1922 48th Kentucky Derby: Albert Johnson aboard Morvich wins in 2:04.6
1927 "Black Friday" on Berlin Stock Exchange
1930 Farmer killed by hail in Lubbock TX; this is the only known fatality due to hail
1931 Paul Doumer elected President of France
1934 Great dustbowl storm
1939 SS St Louis departs Hamburg with 937 Jews fugitives
1940 Churchill says I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears & sweat
1940 Dutch Queen Wilhelmina flees to England
1941 Martin Bormann is named head of Nazi Party Chancellery in Germany
1941 Trial against resistance fighter comte d'Estienne d'Orves begins
1942 Helicopter makes its 1st cross-country flight
1945 US troops conquer Dakeshi Okinawa
1946 US convicts 58 camp guard of Mauthausen concentration camp to death
1947 Senate approved the Taft-Hartley Act limiting the power of unions
1949 1st British-produced jet bomber, Canberra, makes its 1st test flight
1950 Diner's Club issues its 1st credit cards
1952 Minor-league Bristol pitcher Ron Necciai strikes out 27 in 9-innings
1952 Pandit Nehru becomes premier of India
1955 Mickey Mantle hits 3 consecutive homeruns of at least 463'
1958 French settlers riot against French army in Algeria
1958 Jordan & Iraq form the Arab Federation
1958 Rioters attack US Vice President Nixon in Venezuala
1958 Stan Musial, is 8th to get 3,000 hits
1959 Kraft Music Hall with Milton Berle, last airs on NBC-TV
1960 1st launch of Delta satellite launching vehicle; it failed
1965 Rolling Stones record "Satisfaction"
1965 Several Arab nations break ties with West Germany after it established diplomatic relations with Israel
1966 Federal education funding is denied to 12 school districts in the South because of violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
1966 Rolling Stones release "Paint it Black"
1967 New York Yankee Mickey Mantle hits career homerun #500 off Stu Miller
1968 1,000,000 French demonstrate against De Gaulle & Pompidou
1970 Beatles movie "Let it Be" premieres
1972 Milwaukee Brewers beat Minn. Twins, 4-3, in 22 innings. The game had started the evening of May 12.
1975 Hail stones as large as tennis balls hit Wernerville TN
1979 Shah & family sentenced to death in Teheran
1981 Pope John Paul II shot, wounded by assailant in St Peter's Square
1982 Braniff Airlines files for bankruptcy
1982 Terri Lea Utley, (20), from Arkansas, crowned 31st Miss USA
1983 Reggie Jackson is 1st major leaguer to strike out 2,000 times
1985 Philadelphia Police bomb a house held by group "Move", kills 11
1989 Approximately 2,000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, China
1989 Minnesota Twin Kirby Puckett becomes the 35th to hit 4 doubles in a game
1991 Apple releases Macintosh System 7.0
1992 3 astronauts simultaneous walked in space for the 1st time
1992 Final episode of "Night Court" airs on NBC-TV
1992 Frank Stallone beats Geraldo Rivera in boxing on Howard Stern Show
2003 A judge ruled that Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols should stand trial in state court on 160 counts of first-degree murder
2004 Libya agreed to halt military trade with North Korea, Syria and Iran
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
Ancient Rome : Lemuria; a. d. iij Id. Maias
Leprechaun Day
Baltimore : Preakness Frog Hop (Wednesday)
US : Native American/Indian Day (Saturday)
US : Delivery Room Thursday
US : Leprechaun Day
National Police Week (Day 6)
Iowa Tourism Month
Religious Observances
Bhuddist-Singapore : Buddha's Birthday
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Robert Bellarmine, bishop/confessor/doctor
Christian : Solemnity of the Ascension
Feast of St. John the Silent, hermit.
Religious History
1665 A statute was enacted in Rhode Island, offering freemanship with no specifically Christian requirements, thus effectively enfranchising Jews.
1839 Birth of William P. Mackey, a Scottish physician who later in life became a Presbyterian pastor. Mackey wrote several hymns during his life, including "Revive Us Again."
1917 Near Fatima, Portugal, three shepherd children reported that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had appeared to them. Since 1930, this appearance has come to be known as Our Lady of Fatima.
1925 In Tallahassee, Florida, the State legislature passed a bill requiring daily Bible readings in all public schools.
1981 In St. Peter's Square, Rome, Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, 23, shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in an assassination attempt. Following a long convalescence, however, John Paul resumed his world travels.
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Thought for the day :
"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."
Thank you for the book recommendation.