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Memorial dedicated in Stafford

January 9, 2006 12:50 am

By CLINT SCHEMMER

When Jimmy Ghadban was a young man, working long days at two jobs in Prince William County, he'd nip over to the First Manassas battlefield, find a good spot and eat his bag lunch atop Henry Hill.

The place where blue and gray first battled is a quiet, scenic spot, and he liked it. Growing up and going to school in Virginia, Ghadban had come to appreciate the state's Civil War history and the beauty of its landscape.

This weekend, nearly 40 years later, that appreciation took on very solid form in eastern Stafford County--in the shape of a stone monument to men in blue and their sacrifices long ago.

As Ghadban and Glenn Trimmer, co-founder of Friends of Stafford Civil War Sites, pulled back a blue tarp from the marker, oohs and ahs of appreciation rose from the crowd. Eyes were riveted on 51/2 tons of the best gray Vermont granite, 9 feet long and nearly 7 feet high, topped by a star, symbol of the Union army's 12th Corps.

The $21,000 monument, probably the finest Civil War marker in Stafford and comparable to those on the Fredericksburg and Manassas battlefields, commemorates Redoubt No. 3 and the 12th Corps troops who constructed it.

The rectangular 70-foot-long, 12-foot-high earthwork stood on this ground until last spring, when it was leveled by a subcontractor employed by SYG Associates, Ghadban's home-building firm.

On Saturday, the developer--who lives in Nokesville and was shocked when he was told of the fort's destruction--came to make amends. He spoke only briefly, expressing his pride at being able to provide the monument at the subdivision he has since named Sentinel Ridge, and commending the work of Trimmer's group to commemorate the site.

"And I'm grateful for the commitment of the county of Stafford to maintain this monument in memory of our local history and our shared experience," Ghadban said. "We can do these brave men no greater honor."

In an interview yesterday, the developer--who has been building homes in Northern Virginia and Maryland since 1971--said he thinks other builders would do the same.

"It's kind of in our blood. We all care, we really do care. We love Virginia.

"I just feel that it's up to us as individuals to do our share for society. It's not always money," he said. "And that's it. That's the bottom line."

When pressed, Ghadban estimated he has spent $180,000 to $200,000 on engineering, archaeological and other services related to the 12th Corps sites in his Brooke-area subdivisions.

His commitment to Stafford history also includes:

Financing three cast-aluminum historical markers, bearing the county seal, that will soon be posted on roads in and near Sentinel Ridge.

Renaming the Sentinel Ridge subdivision streets for 12th Corps officers and themes. Morning Dew Court, for example, became Slocum Court--named after the 12th Corps commander, Maj. Gen. Henry Warner Slocum.

Inviting the Friends group, in concert with SYG's engineer, to map and excavate the winter-quarters site.

Giving the Friends' 52-page, four-color site report on the winter camp to Sentinel Ridge home buyers.

Preserving the artifacts the Friends unearthed at the winter-quarters site, and offering to build a suitable display case for them so they can be seen by visitors to Stafford government offices or a hoped-for county museum. "They don't belong to me." Ghadban said of the objects. "They belong to the people of Stafford."

For now, Ghadban plans to put them on exhibit in one of SYG's model homes.

Donating a 2-acre permanent easement to preserve the winter-quarters site not far to the east of Redoubt No. 3's site. This spring, people will be able to visit the camp where the 12th Corps' men spent the winter before the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Small wonder, then, that Board of Supervisors Chairman Bob Gibbons was on hand Saturday to thank Ghadban in person. He also praised Trimmer, White Oak Museum founder D.P. Newton, former Stafford Supervisor Kandy Hilliard and the monument's builder, Carroll Memorials, for their efforts.

"I'm honored to join you all in paying tribute to the men who fought so hard in the greatest war in American history," Gibbons said. "Stafford's population has been over 100,000 only twice. Once was during the Civil War, [after which] y'all went back home up north. The other is now, when you came back and stayed."

The last remark drew laughter from the more than five dozen people assembled on the ridge, an unusual combination of natives and newcomers--builders, contractors, historians, Civil War buffs, relic hunters, planners, planning commissioners, county supervisors and others.

Standing atop the ridge on a frosty, blue-sky morning, they said it was plain to see why Union officers chose the site for one of three fortifications to defend Aquia Landing. With a commanding view, it was the perfect place to guard the army's busy port and supply depot on the Potomac River. And just down the hill lay the military railroad to Aquia Landing; Brooke Road, built later, sits atop its old railbed.

Hilliard, recalling residents' initial anger at what happened on the site a year ago, said it is rare that something which began so badly could have such a positive outcome.

Trimmer noted what President Lincoln told people as he delivered his November 1863 address in the cemetery at Gettysburg, filled with the fresh graves of federal soldiers killed in battle there.

People wouldn't long remember what was said by the speechmakers there that day, Lincoln said. But the ground was special, and what happened there must be remembered.

"Well, Glenn, it's not Gettysburg," Trimmer said, poking fun at himself.

But at the time, he noted, Stafford was home to the largest concentration of military might anywhere in the United States. In the course of the war, 170,000 Confederate and Union troops served in Stafford County.

In the late winter of 1862-63, hundreds of soldiers labored with shovels for two months to build the three giant earthworks, weathering the season in the camps nearby.

With only their wool uniforms to keep them from the cold, the men felled trees and built log huts they dug in the mud, enduring their smoky interiors and biting lice all winter long. These same troops probably also garrisoned the redoubts and their big guns.

"It was not a great life," Trimmer said. "A lot of people don't realize that many more died during the Civil War of disease and illness contracted in winter camps, just like what you had around here" than of wounds on the battlefield.

Indeed, at the nearby 12th Corps winter quarters, Trimmer, Newton and their band of volunteers found--neatly aligned in a row, on an east-west axis--what they believed to be the grave sites of five Union soldiers. SYG's archaeologist had mislabeled them as winter hut sites.

Concerned the graves would be covered by a subdivision road, the Friends volunteers carefully excavated two of the sites to confirm their hunch. They found that the men's remains had been reinterred elsewhere (probably in 1867 or 1868), as was common after the war. The historians believe they now rest in Fredericksburg National Cemetery.

In the bottom of one grave site, they found what was left of the poncho or blanket that wrapped one soldier's body, 21 coffin nails, and caps from what they believe was a musket volley that troops fired over the grave in salute to their fallen comrade.

When warm weather returned the following spring, Trimmer explained to Saturday's crowd, some of the same soldiers marched on to fight at Chancellorsville, then went to Gettysburg to battle Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's men at Culp's Hill.

Don't think of these men in the abstract, the retired Air Force colonel urged, likening them to the U.S. service members now posted in Iraq.

"They had families who loved them, they loved their families, they wanted to go home. Some of them didn't go home for four years. Some of them never went home," he said. "It's important we remember them."

Looking to the future, Trimmer and other speakers said they hope the three-way cooperation between the citizens group, builders and the county begun at Redoubt No. 3 will bear fruit in documenting and preserving other Civil War sites in Stafford.

ON THE NET: Friends of Stafford Civil War Sites: fscws.org