The Higgerson Farm
The Battle of the Wilderness
Before you are the fields of the Higgerson Farm, one of only a few major clearings on the Wilderness Battlefield. On the afternoon of May 5, Union troops swept across this open space, bound for bewildering combat in the thickets to the north and west.
When the Federals trampled her fence and garden, Permelia Higgerson emerged from her house, berated the Yankees, and predicted their quick repulse. “We didn’t pay much attention to what she said,” admitted a Pennsylvanian, “but the result proved that she was right.”
After a succession of bloody clashes in the distant woods, the Federals retreated back across this field. Mrs. Higgerson taunted them as they passed.
“At Chickamauga there was at least a rear, but here there ain’t neither front nor rear. It’s all a ----------- mess! And our two armies ain’t nothin but howlin’ mobs!”
- A Confederate prisoner to his captors
Marker is on Hill-Ewell Drive, on the right when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
