Ma James Longstreet: The Battle Of The Wilderness

The Confederates shot from the Wilderness at the Union soldiers.The trees and underbrush made moving hard because of the difficulty the troops faced to move in an orderly fashion and was extremely rough on the cavalry and artillery. Right after 5 am the Union second corps, led by Winfield Scott Hancock, drove back the Confederates nearly a mile. James Longstreet arrived to aid the Confederates helping the fighting to be even more intense than the first day of the battle. Unfortunately for James and many others, the smoke from the canons and guns along with the early morning fog, made it almost impossible to see. This forced soldiers to fire blindly-often hitting people on their own side, which was the case of Longstreet. James Longstreet was shot by one of his own soldiers leaving his right arm completely paralyzed and left him recovering for over five months. Amazingly, Longstreet returned to duty in October 1864, protecting valuable railroad lines while he commanded troops entrenched between Richmond and the James River. This is the battle known as the Battle of the Wilderness. The Battle of the Wilderness lasted two days from May fifth to …show more content…
Longstreet had no middle name. He was a student at West Point from 1838 to 1842 he was in the same class as Ulysses S. Grant and George Pickett. James finished his class in fifty-fourth out of fifty-six. After he finished West Point James became a brevet second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Infantry. He was stationed in Jefferson Barracks, Missouri for two years, where he met Maria Louisa Garland his soon to be wife in 1848. James and Maria had ten children but only five survived past childhood. James saw combat in the Mexican-American War in the battles of Palo Alto, Monterrey, and Vera Cruz. He spent the next several years after his leg injury with no sight of