The Wilderness is located south of the Rapidan River in Virginia’s Orange and Spotsylvania Counties. Historians discussing the Battle of Mine Run, the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, and the Battle of the Wilderness typically use “70 square miles” as a guideline to define the area it encompassed.

 

The southern border is Spotsylvania Courthouse, the western border is the Rapidan River tributary called Mine Run, and the eastern border is a little less definite to define. During the battles which happened there in 1863 and 1864, the region was dense second-growth forest consisting of small trees, bushes, shrubs, and pines, making it difficult for soldiers to navigate. Catharine Furnace, and other furnaces built to make iron, used the large growth trees in the area to fuel their furnaces beginning in 1837, resulting in the second-growth terrain, which created the second-growth area called the Wilderness.

Today, the Wilderness Battlefield is named one of the eleven most endangered historic sites by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A large multi-use development called the Wilderness Crossing is an approved 2,600-acre rezoning and proposed development in Orange County near the intersection of Rt. 3 and Rt. 20 adjacent to Wilderness Battlefield and across from Lake of the Woods. The proposed development sits on part of the Wilderness Battlefield, as well as the site of several old gold mines.