In May 1864, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had begun his grand Overland Campaign to capture Richmond, Va., by marching more than 100,000 men into an area called the Wilderness, near Fredericksburg, Va., about 50 miles north of the Confederate capital. The 13 regiments from New Jersey made up almost 10 percent of Grant’s Army.

In the Wilderness, Grant suffered nearly 17,000 casualties; Robert E Lee’s smaller force of about 60,000 men had the loss of almost 12,000.