November 12—Renewed our march this morning down the Culpeper plank road toward Fredericksburg some three or four miles, then turned off to the right and marched in a southerly course, crossed the Orange plank road and arrived at Spottsylvania Court House little before sunset; then moved down the Fredericksburg road and camped three miles below Spottsylvania Court House. The village of Spottsylvania Court House is composed of three dwelling houses, one church, the court house, and jail. The court house is brick, very small, and only one story high; a little portico at the side entrance and one at the front compose all the superfluous ornamentation on the exterior.
The country right around the village is nearly level, but the encroaching hills are not far away; from the general appearance of the land it is not very fertile. The principal part of our march to-day was through the Wilderness, a scope of country so called from its resemblance to a wild and barren waste. For miles and miles to-day we saw nothing but a vast plain nearly level, and covered with a thick growth of a kind of scrubby oak, averaging about fifteen feet in height and so thick and bushy that a man can hardly pass through the tangled mass. Here and there I saw a few cleared little patches, with a live hut in the center of each, that looked dismal, dilapidated, forlorn, and ought to be forsaken. The whole of the Wilderness is in Spottsylvania County.
