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MONTPELIER: CIVIL WAR TOUR
Re-enactors, special tour guide to depict Confederate troops' 1863-64 winter stay at presidential estate in Orange County
Date published: 7/26/2008
By CLINT SCHEMMER MONTPELIER, the Orange County home of James Madison, is a place rich with stories about fascinating people and events in American history. The beautiful estate is famed as the home of the nation's fourth president and, in more recent times, of horse breeder Marion duPont Scott, its last private owner. Much less well known is the significant role that the property played during the Civil War. But Montpelier's steward, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is illuminating that part of its past with special tours next weekend of one place the Army of Northern Virginia called home during the winter of 1863-64, when Orange County was headquarters for Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate forces. Next Friday through Sunday, visitors can see where hundreds of Lee's troops spent the winter before the Battle of the Wilderness. North and South suffered 30,000 casualties in that 1864 fight, the first eastern engagement in which Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant took command. Three brigades led by Confederate Gen. Cadmus Wilcox camped that winter on Montpelier's grounds. Montpelier's archaeologists funded by the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program have located seven regimental camps there. Two weeks ago, word came that The Montpelier Foundation will receive a $35,000 Park Service grant to study other camps. Gen. Samuel McGowan's South Carolina Brigade occupied one camp preserved on Montpelier's 2,650 acres, laying out 50-man streets, each with a company officer positioned at its head, and building log huts with stone hearths where the men took refuge from the chill. CAMP WELL-PRESERVED Since the South Carolinians pulled out on May 4, 1864, their 5-acre camp site has been nearly untouched. Montpelier's archaeologists have excavated four of its hut sites, which are featured as part of a three-quarter-mile interpretive trail. Guided tours of the site are available only four times a year. Blair will relate some of the stories of the Orange County camps. She is the author of "Tragedy at Montpelier: The Untold Story of Ten Confederate Deserters" and "The Essential Civil War: A Handbook of Battles, Armies, Navies and Commanders."
Date published: 7/26/2008
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