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Wilderness on endangered list

March 1, 2006 12:50 am

By RUSTY DENNEN

It is no secret that sprawl is encroaching on area Civil War battlefields.

But a report released yesterday by the Washington-based Civil War Preservation Trust illustrates that the severity of the threat is both a matter of fact--and opinion.

Case in point: The trust announced that the Wilderness battlefield is among the nation's 10 most endangered by encroaching development. Wilderness made its first appearance on the trust's "History Under Siege" list in 2001.

According to the report, Orange County is being transformed from a once-rural outpost by suburbia creeping from fast-developing Spotsylvania County to the east.

So far, so good.

"Located at the bustling intersection of State Routes 3 and 20, the northern portion of the Wilderness Battlefield is particularly vulnerable," it says, noting that more than 5,000 acres of nearby land is under review for rezoning to residential and mixed use, which could pave the way for 8,000 homes.

County officials say that while development and widening State Route 20 are the subject of ongoing discussions, those numbers are flat wrong.

According to County Administrator Bill Rolfe, no such development plans are now on the table.

A developer owns more than 3,000 acres that straddle the Orange-Spotsylvania line, he said, but no plans for homes have been filed in Orange. One reason is that the county's comprehensive plan designates the area as a site for economic development, agricultural use and as a buffer for the Rappahannock River.

"I guess there are people who have said you could put 8,000 homes on [that] property," Rolfe said, but that discourse has been in the theoretical realm.

As for other potential projects, "We've had two other rezoning requests on Route 3 tabled until we get the comprehensive plan finished," he said. Those, with 700 and 748 homes respectively, are farther west, away from the battlefield, he said.

The trust report says the county population is projected to grow at 3.75 percent annually. Rolfe said the actual number, based on the latest census numbers, is closer to 2.6 percent.

Trust spokesman Jim Campi said yesterday that those numbers came from discussions last year on the latest version of the county's comprehensive plan.

"Last year, this is one of the scenarios they were looking at. We have to look at the worst-case scenario," Campi said.

The Battle of the Wilderness took place May 5 and 6, 1864, in a tangled mass of trees and scrub growth, along portions of what are now State Route 3 in Spotsylvania County and State Route 20 in Orange County.

It was the first clash between Civil War legends Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

The grim, close-quarters battle was marked by soldiers' inability to advance. And it became a living hell for the wounded as fires sparked by gunpowder swept through the brush. More than 25,000 soldiers were wounded or killed in the battle that delayed the Union advance.

Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, says sprawl is a problem for the area's battlefields.

In Orange, "It's a huge aesthetic problem. It rips the heart out of the battlefield if you go to four lanes on Route 20," he said.

When the battlefields were established in 1927, he said, it was believed that the thin boundaries around them would remain forever undeveloped.

"Recent events have shown that to be a mistake," he said.

And a point not mentioned in the report: "Not all of the battlefields are within our park boundaries. It's actually a small percentage" of the land, Smith said. That means thousands of acres with historical significance remain in private hands and vulnerable to development.

There has been some progress in that regard.

The trust report notes that part of the Chancellorsville battlefield that's not in the national park has been protected. The trust in 2004 worked out an agreement with Tricord Homes to save 135 acres where soldiers clashed on the first day of fighting on May 1, 1863.

The Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, meanwhile, has protected 484 acres on more than a dozen sites.

The Fredericksburg area has figured prominently in the trust's annual reports.

Last year, all of Spotsylvania County was on its endangered list. The rationale was that the Spotsylvania Court House, Chancellorsville and Wilderness battlefields held by the National Park Service were threatened by traffic and sprawl, and that much historically significant privately owned land around them needed to be protected.

In 2004, Chancellorsville was on the most-endangered list as efforts to preserve private land not owned by the Park Service were ongoing.

The year before that, the Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania Court House battlefields were said to be seriously threatened by development.

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park protects four major battlefields: Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Court House, Chancellorsville and Wilderness.

Along with Wilderness, the Glendale farm in Richmond is on this year's top 10 list, as well as the Shenandoah Valley. At Glendale, there were about 6,500 casualties, including five generals wounded and one captured. The Shenandoah Valley campaign, between McDowell and Harper's Ferry, unfolded between 1861 and 1865.

The report also includes area at-risk battlefields. Three of those are in Virginia: Buckland, near Manassas, Cedar Mountain in Culpeper, and Manassas.

To reach RUSTY DENNEN:540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com