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Dedication Ceremony for the
Civil War Study Group's Battle of the Wilderness Memorial
10:30 a.m., Monday, May 5, 2014
Lake of the Woods Church lot,
adjacent to the National Park Service's Wilderness Battlefield
1 Church Lane, Locust Grove, VA 22508
Program
Remarks -- Pete Rainey, Chairman, CWSG
Prayer -- Rev. Adam Colson, Youth Pastor, Lake of the Woods Church
Wreath-laying Ceremony
Cannon salute -- Andy Jackson
Taps -- Roy Perry
This memorial, designed by the Civil War Study Group, Inc. and constructed by Carroll Memorials of Fredericksburg, is the only one in the core Wilderness Battlefield area that commemorates the troops of both sides who fell on this battlefield and who remain here in silent sleep.
The memorial consists of two granite pillow blocks, one block of Pennsylvania America black granite and the other from Georgia gray granite, with four small granite corner posts setting off the site. It faces toward the woods that extend south to Wilderness Run and on into Spotsylvania County. On this battlefield, several thousand troops were killed in action on May 5 and 6, 1864. Some of the fallen were left unburied and others hurriedly placed in shallow graves, as both armies moved out toward Spotsylvania Court House on May 7.
Lt. General Richard Ewell, commanding all the Confederate troops in Orange County, wrote that his men buried over a thousand of the enemy and several hundred of their own before they left the field. His account is engraved in the Georgia granite.
On June 12, 1865, Captain James M. Moore, 1st Regiment, 1st U.S. Army Corps, entered the Wilderness Battlefield to superintend the interment of the remains of Federal soldiers. His account is engraved in the Pennsylvania granite.
Morris Schaff, an aide to General U.S. Grant during the battle, wrote on his return to these woods 46 years after fighting here, "Do you imagine the spirits of those boys ever come back, who fell here?"