Good News From Trevilian Station

A couple of weeks, I shared some good preservation news from Trevilian Station that a proposal to erect a cellular telephone tower over a critical portion of the battlefield had been rejected by the local board responsible for such things.

Today, I have even better preservation news from Trevilian Station.

The Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation is a grass-roots organization that started with some local folks who live in Louisa County. When they first started out almost ten years ago, they knew next to nothing about how to preserve battlefield land, and they certainly hadn’t saved an inch. Over time, they’ve learned and have bcome one of the most effective preservation groups around.

The battlefield itself ranges over almost 7,000 acres of Louisa County, Virginia. The first day of fighting covered a lot of ground, as the Confederate cavalry fought a fierce delaying action along the Fredericksburg Stage Road. Virtually ever inch of that road was fought over, and most of it was very hard fighting. The bulk of the first day’s battlefield is, therefore, along this road.

In 2001, with the assistance of the Civil War Preservation Trust, the TSBF preserved about 1,000 acres of the core of the first day’s battlefield, land adjacent to the Fredericksburg Stage Road (Rt. 613). Another parcel of land, the 428 acre Dunn Farm, has been acquired by the TSBF, again with the assistance of the CWPT and an entity called Bernstein Louisa Properties, LLC (I am not familiar with this entity and don’t know what its mission is, but I appreciate its assistance).

The Dunn Farm was an important site of the first day of the battle, and was near the site where Wade Hampton personally led a saber charge by the Citadel Cadet Rangers, a company of the 4th South Carolina Cavalry. As Jerry Harlow of the TSBF has put it, just a few years ago, the Dunn Farm would have been an impossible dream. Today, the TSBF owns it, and it is forever preserved.

The acquisition of the Dunn Farm means that the TSBF now owns exactly 2,000 acres of core battlefield land. Not bad for a grass roots organization.

Congratulations on a job very well done, guys. And keep up the very good work.