If money was no object - say you won that billion-dollar lotto - which battlefields, or parts of battlefields would you try to preserve and why?
I have to admit that my preservation concerns are fairly selfish in that they generally revolve around the battlefields my ancestors fought on. Luckily much of that has already been preserved. So that is fantastic.
1. At the top of my list would be Cedar Creek. Like I said, luckily much of that has been preserved. However, I am very concerned about the "Red Hill" property, some other Middletown properties and any property around the Cupp's Mill site on the far side of the battlefield. The Red Hill property is the land that rises just west of the Belle Grove Plantation. It is between Belle Grove and the quarry. If you took the road that runs from Rt 11 back past Belle Grove (Rt 727) and pass Belle Grove you will drop down into the Meadow Brook valley and at the intersection with Rt 624 (Meadow Mills RD) you will see the little Meadow Mills church on your left. The land in front of you rises to become Red Hill. If you continued forward you would come to a rail line and the little bridge over Meadow Brook and see a farm ahead.
The land you are looking toward (west) is where the Union 6th Corps camped. Gordon's and Kershaw's Divisions would have driven through the Union 8th and 19th Corps behind you and would now press the Third Division of the 6th Corps and regrouped 19th Corps straight up the hill in front of you and from your left. My great grandfather was in the 87th PA up along that ridge line with the rest of Emerson's 1st Brigade of that Third Division. They would ever so slowly be driven north, to your right as you look at the farm and hill in front of you.
If you returned to the intersection with Rt 624 and headed north on that road, the ridge of Red Hill is on your left and that is where Frank Wheaton's First Division of the 6th Corps was making it's stand. Follow Meadow Mills Road to McCune Rd (Rt 757) and turn left toward the stone quarry. About halfway to the quarry you can pull off and if you look to the left (south) you get a wonderful vantage of where the 6th Corps camped and fought. If you turn and look north you will see where the First and Third Divisions would have retreated.
If there was any way to preserve Red Hill, all the land between Meadow Brook and the quarry... I would do it. I would pay the landowners and tell them they and their descendants could continue living there - just as long as it never gets sold to the quarry or some developer! That is such key land at the heart of the battle. And it isn't preserved yet!!!
I would love to see more land around the town's Mt Carmel Cemetery is Preserved. That is where Getty's 2nd Division of the 6th Corps made it's stand. The important Miller Farm property was just preserved and is being interpreted by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation (SVBF). They are also in the process of preserving an important wood lot adjacent to the Miller property.
The Miller house is on Cougill Rd which runs east and west. The Confederate line of battle ran along that road facing north. To the north, the regrouped Union line ran essentially east and west along Klines Mill Road (Rt 633) and faced south. Around 4:00 PM the Union Counterattack began and crossed the fields between the two roads. Again, this is where the 87th PA fought, and Daniel Reigle of that Regiment won his Medal of Honor there. If there was any way to keep those fields out of developer's hands...I would love to see it happen.
The other site at Cedar Creek I would love to preserve is a few miles to the west on the far side of the quarry. It is tricky to find. From the Miller farm return to west 1st street at the center of Middletown and head west. It becomes Chapel Road (Rt 627) That road winds around twisting and turning for about four miles to the Hites Chapel Methodist church. This is the area where Union Cavalry were camped. A little less than a mile farther down the road you will find the dead-end Chapel Lane to the right (still considered Rt 627). At the end of the lane is (well it was there the last time I was there in 2014) the remains of Cupps Mill on the banks of Cedar Creek. This is where Tom Rosser splashed across the Creek with his Division of Cavalry including his Laurel Brigade. The Confederates fought their way up this lane and fighting continued all the way up to Hites Chapel.
My great, great grandfather and his older brother were in the 7th VA Cavalry of the Laurel Brigade fighting here. My great, great grandfather was severely wounded in the leg here. He survived. So, you can imagine why i want to preserve as much of this land as possible!
So, these lands at Cedar Creek are on the top of my list. The quarry scares me, and we have already lost much of Middletown to development. These are highly threatened lands, so I rank them high.
There are other lands i think are threatened and would preserve them if I could!
2. Lands around Winchester. (important family battles; my mother's ancestor captured my father's ancestor...etc)
3. Lands around Brandy Station. (It was the largest Cavalry battle on US soil and is too close to DC for comfort!)
4. Lands around South Mt and Antietam (I'm from Maryland, what can I say??? LOL...the same with...)
5. Lands around Monocacy. (and it was a huge battle for the 87th PA who charged the Thomas House Lane with the 14th NJ)
Luckily much has been preserved. I am pleased that so many important battlefields are preserved, and we can visit them, hike them and better understand what happened there.
I understand we can't preserve them all...however, there is so much land that isn't hallowed that could be developed if they have to. Why do they have to develop hallowed ground? I guess the answer is easy - $$$$
So. what would you like to see preserved and why?
Forum Host
into establishing some sort of military park in the towns of Calais, Maine and St. Albans, Vermont; both towns suffered from Confederate raids coming from Canada. With the understandable emphasis on the great battles and war heroes in the South, the geographical extent of the ACW has been forgotten as well as the incredible bravery of ordinary citizens who (believing that the aggression had come from their south) thought that they were all that was left of the Union.
Bringing the