05May1864: The hand-to-hand fighting was atrocious during the Battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania, including a particularly devastating fire that swept through Saunders Field.
Before the fire. however, both sides stopped to observe and cheer a Confederate and Yankee that had gotten into an old fashioned fistfight after discovering the other in a gully in which both had sought refuge. Both removed hats and coats and proceeded to duke it out. It was reported that the Confederate won the fistfight, taking his captive back into the gully, as a signal for the vicious fighting to commence.
MORE: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/civil_war_series/25/sec3.htm#3
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