Wilderness Battlefield
Orange & Spotsylvania Counties, Virginia

Confederate Artillery at the Tapp Farm

Road Through the Wilderness ~ September 4, 1999 ~ The Battle of the Wilderness commenced about 1 p.m., May 5, 1864. Here, Union Army Commander Grant's objectives were to break through or destroy the Confederate Army. The armies clashed in the entanglement of the Wilderness for two days. By the night of the 6th, 15,000 Union casualties and 11,000 Confederate casualties lie in the wake of the exhausted armies...and Grant had been soundly defeated. Grant went on to write that "more desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent than that of the 5th and 6th of May." At one point, the battle was even "suspended" on some sectors of the battlefield to remove wounded from portions of the Wilderness that had caught fire during the intense fighting. Many could not be removed, and, too weak from their wounds to escape, burned to death. The photographs in the series presented here were taken by Cathe along a road through the Wilderness in an area where heavy fighting had occurred through dense growth and a few rare open fields. The basic soul forms (BSFs) here almost seem attention-starved, and show up readily and with little hesitation. Cathe has a way of calling them and on they come. The Wilderness road through this area has become one of Cathe's favorite places to shoot, and almost always with success. This photo shows a group of BSFs rallying for a photograph. One can also see here they they are not globe-shaped as often thought, but are in fact lentil-shaped, as revealed from the side views of several in the "pack." This shot reveals an especially nice, sharp BSF. Interestingly, some theories suggest the small, pearly ones (below the larger BSF) are "newcomers" among the spirits, and that the larger, more-detailed ones with the well-developed eye in the center (as photographed here) are the older, "veterans" of the spirit world. Photos by Cathe Curtis

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