U.S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, foretold of the horrors of World War I replete with trench warfare, prearranged fields of fire, massive and costly charges known as “forlorn hopes.” I write about battles from the perspectives of the ranks. The Wilderness, like all battles, scarred the minds of the men who fought them with indelible Dantean nightmares, many of which we will never learn about. War is personal. It is something which ages the participants beyond their years. Memories of the Wilderness offers a kaleidoscopic and chaotic view into the minds of the men who endured it. Individuals like Maj. Thomas Hyde (7th Maine) and Capt. Z. Boylston Adams (56th Massachusetts) left behind accounts of very close encounters with death. Brigadier General Joseph Bartlett, literally had the “ride of his life” in Saunders Field. General James Longstreet experienced the oxymoronic “friendly fire” and lived to write about it. Private John King (25th Virginia) chose common sense over heroics, which saved his life. Capt. John F. E. Plogsted (49th New York) mistakenly leaned against the wrong tree. Their stories and the others included in this presentation reconstruct the horrendous inhumane two day engagement where time stopped and minutes seemed like hours. Few monument stud the battlefield. For the survivors the ground  itself and the surviving earthworks are the cenotaphs for those who never left “Virginia’s bloody soil.”