FOR TWO DAYS, nearly two hundred thousand men fought one another in the deadly Battle of the Wilderness. The stark statistics—the Federals suffered 17,666 casualties and the Confederates about 7,500—do not begin to describe the horror. Nature was as much an enemy as the opposing army—diminishing light, disorienting vision, barring ways, and entangling attempted advances. Sound became as important as sight. As the scrub forest caught fire, men were burned alive. Other men, seeing the fire approaching, killed themselves with their own weapons.
