Virginia Governor Calls for Creation of Culpepper Battlefields State Park

American Battlefield Trust applauds Governor’s request to create a historic and recreational park in the heart of Virginia’s Piedmont region
American Battlefield Trust

January 22, 2022

(Richmond, Va.) — The American Battlefield Trust applauds Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s announcement on Friday, requesting $4.93 million for land acquisition to create a Culpeper Battlefields State Park. The announcement was part of a package of legislative initiatives and budget amendments submitted by the Governor to the General Assembly on January 21, 2022. 

“Friday’s announcement marks an important step in the effort to create a Culpeper Battlefields State Park,” noted Trust President David Duncan. “Culpeper’s battlefields are among the most pristine and historic in the nation. Transforming this landscape into a state park will produce a heritage tourism destination in the heart of Virginia’s Piedmont, with educational, recreational, and economic opportunities that will benefit visitors and local residents alike.” 

The Culpeper Battlefields State Park initiative is a proposal to create a state park from a critical mass of more than 1,700-acres of preserved lands on the Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain Battlefields. While this landscape’s overarching national significance is associated with famous Civil War battles and events, the region is rich in history and culture. The pristine countryside visible today retains the imprint of its first native people and the generations that followed.  

State Senator Bryce Reeves, long a champion of a state park in Culpeper County, urged the Governor to make a Culpeper Battlefields State Park a priority for the new administration. He worked tirelessly with the Governor’s team to craft the budget amendment submitted to the General Assembly on Friday. According to Reeves, “Culpeper is the ideal location for Virginia’s next state park. I look forward to the day when Virginians and visitors from throughout the country can learn about our nation’s history by visiting these hallowed grounds.” 

Joining Senator Reeves in support of a Culpeper Battlefields State Park is a long-standing and bipartisan coalition of state legislators, national and local preservation organizations, and Culpeper government officials. In 2016, the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors and the Culpeper Town Council both passed resolutions endorsing a state battlefield park in Culpeper County. 

As submitted, the Governor’s budget amendment sets aside $4.93 million in FY2023 for the state park. The amendment indicates the funding “[p]rovides for the purchase of land to create a new state park in Culpeper County that will have multiple recreational and educational opportunities.” 

Nestled in the Virginia Piedmont, Culpeper County is widely recognized for its scenic character, natural beauty, and abundant history. Its pristine rivers, rolling landscape, recreational opportunities and unparalleled historic resources make it a desirable location for a state park. Its location between the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers made it an area of strategic importance during the Civil War, and thousands of enslaved peoples crossed its rivers, heading northward to Freedom; some returned as free men to fight for their country on this very soil.  

The American Battlefield Trust is dedicated to preserving America’s hallowed battlegrounds and educating the public about what happened there and why it matters today. The nonprofit, nonpartisan organization has protected more than 54,000 acres associated with the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War.  Learn more at www.battlefields.org. 

Gettysburg College's Annual Civil War Conference Set for June

From Gettysburg College:
CLICK HERE TO GO TO CONFERENCE PAGE

Join us, June 10-15, 2022, for an exciting lineup of CWI speakers! We are excited to feature leading Civil War scholars, Gary Gallagher, Joan Waugh, Jeffry Wert, Carol Reardon, Carrie Janney, Brooks Simpson, Scott Hartwig, and more within our line-up of over 35 distinguished speakers and tour guides.

For over 35 years, the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College has hosted a premiere annual summer conference bringing leading historians and public audiences together for lectures, battlefield tours, small group discussions, and roundtable conversations about the Civil War era. Sessions, lodging, and meals are held on the 200-acre college campus.

The 2022 CWI Conference will feature a wide range of topics, including Civil War battlefield & camp archaeology, the demobilization of Lee’s army, the memorialization of the Gettysburg centennial, U.S. Grant, race, and racial violence during Reconstruction, treasures from the Library of Congress and National Archives, a re-assessment of the 20th Maine and Little Round Top, slavery, war, and the transformation of medicine, Francis Barlow’s Civil War, and more.

In addition to touring the Gettysburg battlefield, participants will have the opportunity to visit a variety of other nearby battlefields and historic sites on tours that will explore 2nd Fredericksburg, South Mountain, North Anna, Spotsylvania, Bristoe Station, the 1864 Maryland Campaign battlefields, and more. Participants who may prefer a shorter, more physically active conference experience can also choose to sign up for our new “active track” package, featuring a combination of Friday and Saturday morning lectures and a day and a half of walking-intensive tours of the Gettysburg battlefield on Saturday and Sunday with historian Timothy Orr, exploring sharpshooting at Gettysburg.

This conference will also continue the recently added Saturday evening tours of the Gettysburg battlefield, half-day Tuesday tours following select regiments “from battlefield to field hospital,” as well as both “lunch-in” and “dine-in” discussions with CWI faculty.

The 2022 conference will offer something for everyone, from longtime students of the Civil War to those who are new to Civil War history.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO CONFERENCE PAGE

Adams County Historical Society Building Progress

New History Center Underway!

ACHS writes:

Dear Friends - what a start to 2022!

As you can see to the right, our 25,000-square-foot facility is rapidly taking shape. We're now projecting a February 2023 opening date for all three components of the history center. Here's more on what you can expect:

Beyond the Battle Museum, our core attraction, will take you on a journey through time, covering over 300 years of American history through the lens of our uniquely famous community. Here, you'll explore the inside of James Gettys' tavern, seek refuge in a home caught in the crossfire of the Battle of Gettysburg, and walk through a crowd of eyewitnesses to the Gettysburg Address. We want you to experience these critical moments in history like never before.

Along the way, you'll see hundreds of our rarest artifacts - fascinating treasures never before placed on exhibit.

The second floor of our new history center will feature a spacious event and education center. Here, we'll invite you to attend frequent programs and events, including seminars and workshops hosted by Gettysburg's top historians.

Finally, for those researching Gettysburg and Adams County history, our spacious library and archives will house millions of documents, images, and artifacts - safe, climate-controlled, and under one roof for the first time ever. Here, a cohort of expert volunteers and local historians will help you find what you're searching for and dig deeper into the history of Gettysburg and Adams County.

As we gear up for an exciting grand opening, I hope you'll become even more involved with ACHS. Here are a few things you can do right now to be part of this historic effort:

Become a Member - starting at $40 per year, you'll receive free admission to the new center and discounted rates on ACHS programs, tours, and classes.

Donate to our Building Fund - As of today, we have raised 82% of our goal in gifts and pledges. Let's get to 100%! Can you help us?

Follow us on Facebook - We post historic photos from the collection every day.

New book challenges Civil War’s old myths about Maryland

New book challenges Civil War’s old myths

Charles W. Mitchell, co-editor with historian Jean H. Baker of the new book, “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered,” at his home in Parkton, Md., on Nov. 21. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun)

By Jonathan M. Pitts
January 17, 2022 at 6:06 p.m. EST
Washington Post

Regular folks and history buffs who believe Maryland leaned strongly toward the Confederacy during the Civil War era have never lacked evidence for the claim.

It was a Marylander, after all, on the U.S. Supreme Court who wrote the opinion in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case, which found that Black people were not citizens — a ruling that helped spark the fighting. And Marylanders voted for a Southern sympathizer, not Abraham Lincoln, for president in the election of 1860. Then, some 20,000 Marylanders took up arms for the Confederacy.

But such facts can be deceiving if looked at in a vacuum — or so say the scholars behind a critically acclaimed new book that aims to explode long-standing myths about the period.

In “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered,” a collection of 13 essays assembled and edited by Baltimore historians Charles W. Mitchell and Jean H. Baker, are independent thinkers from as far away as California and England and as close as Johns Hopkins University. They point out, among other things, that contrary to popular belief, Maryland judges refused to put the Dred Scott decision into effect; that more Marylanders voted, in total, for the three presidential candidates who backed the Union than they did for John C. Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat who carried the state in 1860, and that four times as many Old Line State men fought for the Union than for the South.

Maryland, in short, was less sympathetic to the Confederate cause, and more behind the Union, than generations of historians have implied, says Mitchell, a self-taught Civil War expert, author and editor who got the sprawling essay project rolling four years ago.

History, he says, is framed by the values of those who pass it along. In the case of Maryland’s antebellum and Civil War history, the men and women who shaped it first were people who held to the notion that the Southern cause — far from being a bloody campaign to preserve slavery — was a matter of states’ rights. They viewed it as a noble crusade that failed only because the Union side was better equipped and funded.

The earliest chroniclers, he says, were Confederate veterans. The generations of historians who succeeded them wrote at a time when powerful Democrats, North and South, were still working to deny African Americans full enjoyment of their freedoms.

“The same Confederate sympathizers who had lost the war worked hard to win it in the history books, and for many years, they succeeded,” Mitchell says, including in textbooks used in Maryland well into the 20th century.

It wasn’t until the last 20 years or so, Mitchell adds, that younger scholars began training their focus on the kinds of period documents their forebears ignored.

By diving into court and estate records, schedules of enslaved people, letters written by ordinary citizens, articles in the Black press and more, those scholars, including several represented in the book, began to put together a more comprehensive history — one that weakens Maryland’s “Lost Cause” narrative.

Mitchell and Baker, a former history professor at Goucher College and the author of multiple award-winning books, conceived “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered” as an entry in that new vein. Early reviewers say they’ve struck a blow for a more accurate, fuller telling of the CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE STORTY

 

Ken Burns Speaks Out About Proposed Digital Data Center Near Manassas

By Kurt Repanshek - January 12th, 2022
National Parks Traveller

A digital data center being considered for more than 2,000 acres next to Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia has been called the "greatest threat" in recent history to the battlefield and drawn opposition from filmmaker Ken Burns, who has urged Prince William County officials to oppose the project.

The "PW Digital Gateway" proposal requires the county to switch the zoning of the desired location from agricultural or estate and environmental resource to technology. 

In a letter (attached below) sent January 5 to Ann Wheeler, chair of the county supervisors, Burns wrote that the battlefield park's superintendent, in a letter to Wheeler, had said the project is the "single greatest threat to Manassas National Battlefield Park in nearly three decades."

"The warning of the superintendent should not be taken lightly," wrote Burns, one of the country's preeminent documentary filmmakers whose credits include The National  Parks: America's Best Idea. "As a student and chronicler of American history for more than 40 years, I can attest to how fragile our precious heritage is and how susceptible it can be to the ravages of 'progress.'

"I learned while making my documentary series The Civil War in the late 1980s—and again when I made my 2009 series on the history of the national parks—how crucial the preservation of our historic landscapes is, and I fear the devastating impact the development of up to 2,133 acres of data centers will have on this hallowed ground," he added.

Brandon Bies, the park's superintendent, wrote a lengthy letter to the county planner in December in which he pointed out that "a 10-acre portion of the application area falls within what the United States Congress has designated as part of Manassas National Battlefield Park -- lands which can and should be part of a National Park. In addition, not all areas where soldiers fought and died are within the park boundary. Over 100 acres of land under consideration have been designated by the congressionally authorized American Battlefield Protection Program as part of the battlefield 'core area.'"

"These are lands where battle action took place and are typically thought to be 'hallowed ground,'" continued Bies. "Changing the planned land use of these areas would inhibit the mission of the Park to preserve and honor the sacrifices of the 4,000 Americans who died at Manassas."

The First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) was fought near Manassas, Virginia, on July 21, 1861. The Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) was fought over nearly the same ground during August 28-30, 1862. 

Back in 2008, Professor Emeritus Robert Janiskee wrote in the Traveler that concerns were growing over threats development posed to the battlefield.

The two battles commemorated at the 5,100-acre park, both Confederate victories, were fought less than 30 miles southwest of our nation’s capital in an area of northern Virginia that has experienced tremendous economic growth over the past few decades. Fast-growing Prince William and Fairfax counties are now so heavily developed that green space and large trees have become comparatively scarce in many areas. Locals fear that few mature trees will be left unless development is checked and strict tree protection ordinances are enforced. Another concern at Manassas and other Civil War battlefield parks is encroaching development that obscures historic sightlines. ... Some battlefield parks, such as Fredericksburg and & Spotsylvania National Military Park, are almost completely surrounded by development and exist as historic islands in a modern milieu. In such cases, historic sightlines extend only as far as the park boundary.

In reviewing the current proposal, Justin Patton, the Prince William County archaeologist, wrote that the project would "have a high potential to adversely affect cultural resources in the following forms: indirect effects such as Audio, and Visual; and direct effects in the destruction of the resource. Transportation improvements necessary to implement land use and zoning changes, will likely have an indirect and direct effects on our history as well."

Patton also noted that land within the proposal could hold significant archaeological artifacts from the Civil War:

The staff historian at the Manassas National Battlefield Park provided information on Civil War activity that occurred on or that may have occurred in the South Sector. That portion west of Pageland Land, Pageland farm, may contain Confederate encampments that were occupied during August and September 1861 and associated burials from soldier deaths in camp. There may also be soldier burials and camps as a result from the adjacent field hospital that was in use during and after the Second Battle of Manassas. Confederate artillery batteries were likely located in the area of the railroad bed, based on reports from relic hunters who found unexploded ordinance and dropped bullets. That portion east of Pageland Lane has potential for unmarked military graves and unexploded ordinance from a heated exchange of artillery fire on the morning of August 29, 1862.

The archaeologist also recommended that the proposed zoning redesignation be rejected for areas that the American Battlefield Protection Program identified as part of the battlefield 'core area.'"

A public meeting on the project is set for January 27 at the Beacon Hall Conference Center on the George Mason University SciTech Campus in Manassas.

Petersburg National Battlefield preparing for the preservation of two smokehouses

Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia is preparing for the preservation of the two smokehouses and dairy at the General Grant’s Headquarters Unit in Hopewell. The preservation of these buildings, which are part of historic Appomattox Plantation and listed as a part of the City Point National Register District, includes the removal of the three buildings from their foundations to perform wood framing and sheathing repairs, carpentry repairs, and interior and exterior painting.

Additionally, the project will attempt to restore the three buildings' foundations. The restoration of the foundations will follow an archaeological survey to investigate the integrity of resources underground and construction of the foundations. The results of the survey will inform the restoration of the foundations.

Petersburg National Battlefield invites comments on the Preservation of Outbuildings at City Point draft Programmatic Agreement as part of the public process outlined in the regulations for Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

Comments can be made via this website. The comment period runs through February 12. 

People have lived at City Point for thousands of years and the Park Service wants to ensure that the past is adequately recorded. 

Published in National Parks Traveller from NPS News Releases

Gettysburg will dedicate Thaddeus Stevens statue at courthouse on April 2

from the Gettysburg Connection
January 10, 2022 by Ross Hetrick 

A statue of Thaddeus Stevens, the most powerful congressman during and after the Civil War, will be dedicated in front of the Adams county courthouse on Baltimore Street in Gettysburg on April 2 at 2:00 p.m. It will be only the second statue of Stevens to be erected despite his importance to American history.

The dedication is part of a three-day celebration of Stevens’s 230th birthday, which will take place on April 1, 2 and 3 in Lancaster, Gettysburg and Caledonia State Park near Chambersburg. The complete schedule can be found at this webpage: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/calendar For information on banquet tickets and package deals, email info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com 

The statue is being paid for by the Thaddeus Stevens Society, a 22-year old nonprofit dedicated to promoting Stevens legacy. The sculptor is Alex Paul Loza of Chattanooga, TN.

Immortalized in the movie Lincoln, by Steven Spielberg, Stevens was a fearless champion of freedom and equality. During his lifetime, Stevens’s fame rivaled that of Abraham Lincoln and when he died in 1868, his body laid in state in the Capitol Rotunda — an honor previously given only to Lincoln and Sen. Henry Clay. 20,000 people attended Stevens’s funeral in Lancaster, PA.

He was the Father of the 14th Amendment — the single most important amendment to the Constitution– and savior of public education in Pennsylvania. He also helped persuade Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, developed reconstruction policies, spearheaded the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, and participated in the Underground Railroad.

When he died in 1868, it was widely anticipated that there would be numerous statues erected to Stevens. “Monuments will be reared to perpetuate his name on the earth,” said Horace Maynard, a Tennessee congressman on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1868. “Art will be busy with her chisel and her pencil to preserve his features and the image of his mortal frame. All will be done that brass and marble and painted canvas admit of being done.”

Yet, 154 years after his death, there is only one Stevens statue and that only went up in 2008 at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster. 

There are many reasons why Stevens was not remembered in brass and marble. A big reason was that admirers did not vigorously pursue efforts to honor him. But a larger reason is that his enemies — the people who wanted to destroy the country and preserve slavery — were more determined to demonize Stevens as part of the “Lost Cause” propaganda effort to distort the historic record of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

There have been a few other efforts to erect Stevens statues, but they all failed. The first one was in 1900 by Vinnie Ream, a famous sculptress who did the Lincoln statue that stands in the U.S. Capitol. She had a close relation with Stevens and even did a bust of him, which unfortunately has been lost. That possible statue, which was to be in Lancaster, was never done. 

Another statue was proposed in 1909 when a group wanted to erect a monument in Harrisburg to public education. It would have included the figure  of Thaddeus Stevens, who is known as the Savior of Public Education in Pennsylvania for a speech he made in 1835 that turned back a repeal effort of the fledgling state school system. Once again, the effort faded away.

And even in recent years, a statue was supposed to be erected at the historic Thaddeus Stevens school in Washington, D.C. as part of a renovation project, only to be scuttled by the city’s bureaucracy.

Finally, in 2015, the Thaddeus Stevens Society decided to start a fundraising effort for a statue in Gettysburg, where Stevens lived from 1816 to 1842. The fundraising went on for years and in 2018, the effort received a major contribution from Michael Charney of Ohio and the effort reached the goal of  $55,000. The Society then did a nationwide search for a sculptor and selected Alex Loza of Chattanooga, TN. 

A Christmas Message from the American Battlefield Trust

As Christmas dawns, our thoughts turn to how the soldiers of America's first century weathered each winter in the field during times of war.

 

Winter was bleak during our country's earliest conflicts. Hundreds of thousands of troops toiled in the cold or huddled in canvas-roofed huts while many died of disease in camp. Leaders generally tried to avoid operations due to the trying conditions. But for the soldiers engaged in battle, there was little rest over the holiday.

 

Soldiers preparing for the bloody Battle of Stones River in late December 1862, or shivering in the trenches outside of Petersburg in 1864, found little respite on Christmas or New Year's Day. In 1776, Continental soldiers braved bitter conditions and moved across the icy Delaware River under the command of George Washington to launch a surprise attack against Hessian soldiers and disrupt their traditional German Christmas celebrations.

 

Soldiers who were not on active campaign struggled against the weather and the boredom of life in winter quarters. They sought to bring some semblance of home and comfort to the holiday season. They relished letters from their loved ones, shared special meals, felt loneliness and longing, and even engaged in epic snowball fights. There are records of Civil War soldiers bringing traditional holiday customs like caroling, gift exchanges, and decorating, to camp.

 

One soldier from the 17th Maine recorded that he and his fellow troops eagerly awaited the "sundry boxes and mysterious parcels" directed to them "with feelings akin to those of children expecting Santa Claus." Another soldier, Alfred Bellard of the 5th New Jersey Infantry, recalled a small tree, "decked off with hard tack and pork, in lieu of cakes and oranges," that added festivity to life in a winter camp.

 

Soldiers often let their folks at home know what kind of food they craved. One Confederate soldier from North Carolina wrote his mother,

 

"I wish you would send me a big cake and some dried apple pies or 'slapjacks,' I believe they call them, some molasses, dried fruit, lard, vegetables &c any thing you choose. Please send me a bottle of brandy and some sugar and I will make an eggnog from Christmas if I can manage to get some eggs. Please send me a pound or two of butter for we very seldom get any up in these diggings."

 

Yet, despite troops' best efforts to partake in holiday celebrations on the front, the season also served as a reminder that soldiers were separated from their loved ones and the comforts of home.

 

As we count our blessings, let us also deepen our appreciation for our soldiers' devotion and how they shaped - and continue to shape - the country we call home, often far away from their families. Thank you for doing your part to help ensure that their memory is never forgotten.