Union General Ulysses Grant’s Overland Campaign began at The Wilderness, and was the start of an inexorable series of confrontations that ended with the April 9, 1865 surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Grant’s forces at The Wilderness were a combination of the Army of the Potomac, under the leadership of General George Meade, and the Ninth Corps, under the leadership of General Ambrose Burnside. Given his experience in the Western Theater of the War, Grant explicitly requested United States Colored Troops (USCT). These were added as the Fourth Division of Burnside’s Ninth Corps. While at The Wilderness the 4th DIV was charged with guarding the supply train, on May 15 during the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse they entered combat for the first time against Lee’s Confederate forces. At about 3,500 they were a small part of the over 200,000 men who served in the USCT throughout the Union Army in the last two years of the Civil War. The 4th DIV participated in not only the Overland Campaign, but also the Battle of the Crater, the Siege of Petersburg, and eventually Appomattox. TO VIEW THE FEB 2024 RECORDED PRESENTATION ON THIS SUBJECT, CLICK HERE, OR TO VIEW THE SLIDESHOW WITHOUT NARRATION, CLICK HERE.