Vermont units play key role at Wilderness

Editors’ Note: In commemoration of the 145th anniversary of the Battle of the Wilderness, Zann Miner produced and directed a play based on the letters of William H. Stowe, 2nd Vermont Co F. Today is the final article in the series.

Last week Cpl. Stowe was confronted with yet another conundrum often found on the battlefield; the enemy soldiers looked a lot like his own tent mates, friendly, helpful and also wanting to go home.
             

By December of 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac with an estimated 120,000 troops, including Cpl. Stowe and the 2nd Vermont, had settled in Culpeper County, VA. In March, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant took command of the army and planned his Overland Campaign.
“April 14, 1864
Camp at Brandy Station, VA
Dear Mother:
This evening I got your letter of the 7th it found me well and with the exception of having the teeth ache for two or three days. Yesterday I had it extracted taking a piece of the jaw with it but today I am in no pain.

Those pictures I sent home are some of the boys of my acquaintance. I intend to have nearly all the boys picturs that came out with me.

If nothing happens more than I know of now I have onley 45 days longer to stay.  The Regiment is due to be mustered out on the first not the 20th of June.

It is now Spring and the weather fine. I could stay hear well enough if it were not for one thing and that is my longing for the quiet of home.

I am sick of war. Three long years I have bin surrounded with the grim sentinels of death & I want to get out of it.

As it is getting late in the evening I will lay this aside for roll call and finish in the morning.  good night.”

           
On May 3rd, Cpl. Stowe and the 2nd Vermont received orders to prepare three days rations and join the rest of the Army of the Potomac in a march to the east through the Wilderness of Spotsylvania and Orange Counties.
Grant hoped to pass quickly through this area but Robert E. Lee had other plans: by attacking the Northern forces in the tangled second growth forest he could neutralize Grant’s advantages in men and artillery. 
At midday on May 5, the First Vermont Brigade, including William Stowe’s regiment was at the center of the Union lines near the intersection of the Brock and Orange Plank roads. 

In the furious struggle that ensued for control of the crossroads, the Vermont units played a key role in holding off the Southerners and narrowly avoiding a catastrophic defeat for Grant.

On that fateful day, in a span of a few hours, the 1st Brigade suffered over 1200 casualties, including William H. Stowe. Cpl. Stowe’s body was later retrieved from the Wilderness and transported home to Calais, Vermont where he is buried.

The 180,000 troops engaged at the Battle of the Wilderness suffered an estimated 29,000 casualties.  Over the days and weeks to follow, hundreds of letters arrived in homes in Ohio, Virginia, New York, Texas and 23 other states. And yet, other families would never learn the fate of their loved one; who had died unknown in an anonymous field or hospital.

The costs of the Civil War were almost beyond calculation, but this greatest of American tragedies had lasting positive impact.  The term ‘United States’ changed from a plural to a singular noun.

The permanently unified nation “conceived in liberty” would endure and prosper and “the proposition that all men are created equal” was determined once and for all time to mean exactly what it says.

Lincoln, Grant, Lee, and myriad other larger than life personalities made the earth-shaking decisions, took the major actions, and initiated the principle results. 

But countless men and women like William Stowe and his family and friends, and their Southern counterparts, each played critical roles in this epoch.

Their commitments and sacrifices made possible many of the blessings that we enjoy.  Though our journey to “a more perfect union” continues, it is led, in no small fashion, by their example.

A very special thank you to John Tole of Rappahannock for his exceptional aid in developing the narratives and the graphics and again, a thank you to Dennis Buttacavoli of New Jersey for providing the letters.