The second battle of the wilderness fought during the war between the states was fought through a thick wilderness of nearly uncharted thick forest. This was the same wilderness which had born the brunt a a battle the year before. Those killed during the first battle (tens of thousands) had been buried where they fell in shallow graves. Many of these graves had been exposed by weather and scavengers during that year. So these soldiers were fighting in such thick woods that one might not be able to see an enemy they could plainly hear and were fighting through a veritable bone yard of year old corpses. Nobody knows how many people died from "friendly" fire. And come nightfall when the battles stopped all too often the surrounding dry woods were ablaze from the day's fighting. And those who had been wounded and couldn't move were treated to watching these fires approach before they burned ,screaming, to death. Tens of thousands of men died in this weeks old battle and when it was over the only thing which had been accomplished was death. But the south had fewer troops to spare compared to the union.This second battle has been pretty well recognized as the most horrendous of the war. Others had more casualties and larger armies but none other was waged in such terrible surroundings.........stan