Preservation: How to Do It Right, Part 2

Help in preserving important Civil War sites in the Fredericksburg area has come from many quarters, including developers.

The Silver Cos. recently completed its second donation of land at Grant’s Knoll, across from Ellwood in Orange County, according to the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust.

The land, deeded to the preservation group, is considered the gateway to the Wilderness Battlefield.

Silver, the Fredericksburg area’s largest commercial development firm, donated about 12 acres. That comes on the heels of a donation of about 6 acres near the intersection of State Routes 3 and 20 in 2001.

According to CVBT Secretary Erik Nelson, the donated ground is where Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant made his headquarters during his first confrontation with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1864.

Over the two-day battle, the Confederates turned both flanks of the Union army and fought to a standstill along Orange Plank Road.

Abraham Lincoln spoke of Grant’s determination late in the war, remarking, “When Grant once gets possession of a place, he holds onto it as if he had inherited it.”

In September, CVBT Executive Director Linda Wandres noted the importance of the donation in a statement to the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the Civil War Commission.

“It is indisputable that the actions of preservation-minded people over the next five years will determine the fate of the remaining Civil War battlefields in Virginia,” she said.

“What is not bought and saved by the time of the [150th anniversary] will be lost forever.”

Preservation of important Civil War parcels outside National Park Service battlefield boundaries is an urgent focus of CVBT at a time when sprawl is gobbling up what little land remains.

CVBT President Mike Stevens said the Grant’s Knoll land will now be protected in perpetuity, and he praised the Silver Cos.

“The donation is a generous contribution at a time when so much is developing so rapidly.”

Grant’s Knoll’s historical connections go way back.

“This is also the area where Lafayette camped” before the Battle of Yorktown in the Revolutionary War, Nelson said.