Later in the evening consternation swept the Federal camp when heavy firing was heard in the direction of Sedgwick's corps, on the right. The report was current that the entire Sixth Corps had been attacked and broken. What had happened was a surprise attack by the Confederates, commanded by General John B. Gordon, on Sedgwick's right flank, Generals Seymour and Shaler with six hundred men being captured. When a message was received from Sedgwick that the Sixth Corps was safe in an entirely new line, there was great rejoicing in the Union camp.
Thus ended the two days' fighting of the battle of the Wilderness, one of the greatest struggles in history. It was Grant's first experience in the East, and his trial measure of arms with his great antagonist, General Lee. The latter returned to his entrenchments and the Federals remained in their position. The first clash had been undecisive. While Grant had been defeated in his plan to pass around Lee, yet he had made a new record for the Army of the Potomac, and he was not turned from his purpose of putting himself between the Army of Northern Virginia and the capital of the Confederacy. During the two days' engagement, there were ten hours of actual fighting, with a loss in killed and wounded of about seventeen thousand Union and nearly twelve thousand Confederates, nearly three thousand men sacrificed each hour. It is the belief of some military writers that Lee deliberately chose the Wilderness as a battle-ground, as it would effectually conceal great inferiority of force, but if this be so he seems to have come to share the unanimous opinions of the generals of both sides that its difficulties were unsurmountable, and within his entrenchments he awaited further attack. It did not come.
The next night, May 7th, Grant's march by the Confederate right flank was resumed, but only to be blocked again by the dogged determination of the tenacious antagonist, a few miles beyond, at Spotsylvania. Lee again anticipated Grant's move. It is not strange that the minds of these two men moved along the same lines in military strategy, when we remember they were both military experts of the highest order, and were now working out the same problem. The results obtained by each are told in the story of the battle of Spotsylvania.