Saunders Field
Battle of the Wilderness
"The Last crop of the old field had been corn and among its stubble that day were sown the seeds of glory."
Morris Schaff, USA Staff
Tucked away in the Wilderness's trackless forest were several small clearings, where families with names like Higgerson, Chewning, and Tapp eked out a meager living tilling the region's thin soil. Saunders Field, which surrounds you, was an abandoned corn patch in 1864. With the arrival of the armies on May 5, it would become a brutal smoking killing field.
The Orange Turnpike - modern Route 20 - bisected Saunders Field. A major thoroughfare early in the 1800s, the turnpike later lost much of its traffic to the Orange Plank Road. By the time of the battle, it was a quiet country road that - by dint of war - would become world famous.
Marker is on Constitution Highway (State Highway 20), on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
