Wilderness & Spotsylvania

Once again, early Friday morning found us on the trusty Gettysburg College minibus in the capable hands of Driver Bob.  We started out at the early hour of 7 am, and before I knew it (aka about 3 hours later) we were at the Chancellorsville National Military Park where we picked up our guide, National Park Ranger Greg Merz.  Although the battle of Chancellorsville was in 1862 and our trip was all about the Overland campaign of 1864, Chancellorsville is right in the heart of the Wilderness, which was our first stop.
When I think of the thick of the woods today, I imagine looming monster sized trees filled with thick underbrush.  Well, I soon learned that this was not the case of the Wilderness in 1864; filled with thousands of thin, close trees and connected with snaky vines, even Rebel John had a heck of a time running through a piece of it!  After walking through the Wilderness battlefield, Dr. Guelzo decided to test our ability to work as an artillery team.  After getting our positions and practicing, I think we would have only blown ourselves up twice- not bad for amateurs!
The battlefield of Spotsylvania was next on our list of things to do.  The bitter weather of the day seemed fitting when we visited the infamous Mule Shoe salient, the place where the fighting clashed so devastatingly that a 22 inch diameter tree was felled by small arms fire.  Every battlefield is the site of endless violence and suffering, but there was something about the area of the Mule Shoe that seemed so strange; knowing the horrific fighting that happened there contrasted so distinctly with the now peaceful landscape that it was almost unsettling.  After spending some time at the Mule Shoe, we finally set off for our last destination of the day.

Massaponax Church did not see any fighting during the Overland Campaign, but it iconic to us Civil War buffs; a famous photo was taken from the church's window of a meeting of General Grant's staff.  As a bonus, we found the graffiti in the balcony section that was left from wounded soldiers passing through.

The most important part about the church was the fact that the General Grant sat in one of the pews (which are still original to the church), and Dr. Guelzo made the mistake of telling Jessie and myself that some of the semester students last year sat in every pew to be able to claim that they sat in the same pew as Grant.  We just had to continue the tradition!

After getting a head shake from Dr. Guelzo, we piled back into the bus and continued on to the hotel and more importantly, dinner.  After looking at the itinerary, I realized that today's schedule is nothing compared to how packed tomorrow's going to be!