Which Confederate general was wounded by friendly fire at the Battle of the Wilderness?

The Confederate general wounded by friendly fire at the Battle of the Wilderness was James Longstreet.

Longstreet was wounded on May 6, 1864, while leading the Confederate First Corps during the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. His troops had launched a powerful counterattack against Winfield S. Hancock’s Union II Corps, exploiting an unfinished railroad bed and briefly threatening the Union flank.

As Longstreet rode forward with several officers, Confederate soldiers from the 12th Virginia mistakenly identified the mounted group as Union troops. Their volley killed Brigadier General Micah Jenkins and wounded Longstreet severely in the neck and shoulder. The injury removed him from the campaign for months and helped halt the momentum of the Confederate attack.

The most common mix-up involves Stonewall Jackson. Jackson was also wounded by Confederate friendly fire in the Wilderness region—but almost exactly one year earlier, during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Longstreet’s injury occurred during the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness, making him the specific answer to this question.