As I child I spent many days in The Wilderness. My father was something of a Civil War buff and on the weekends he would, in moments of desperation, put my brothers and I in the car and drive us to a nearby battlefield where we could run around to our heart’s content. As a result, I have visited the battlefields of central Virginia countless times. The Wilderness was always my favorite. I could say it was because of some enduring fascination with those violent days in May 1864, but in reality, that came later. The Wilderness is fundamentally just a dense forest, and as a kid who liked being outside in the woods that made it infinitely more appealing than an open field.