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Some of the Civil War artifacts unearthed at what is being called 'Camp Geary' are on exhibit at the Brooke Ridge subdivision information center in Stafford County.
Recognizing a Union encampment site in Stafford are (from left) Paulette Watson, Glenn Trimmer, D. P. Newton, Rick Scites, Al Loy, Deborah Shelton, Mark Gallimore. The marker was placed last week in Brooke Ridge, eastern Stafford. |
"We are building another fort and choping down woods.
"I guess it wont be my luck to get my discharge until the war is over. I want to ceep my health and see this awful war setteld and I hope it will soone be for I want to go home."
--Union soldier Charles Engle, writing to his wife on May 31, 1863, from Camp Aquia Creek
BY CLINT SCHEMMER
Charles Engle probably never imagined that future generations would care about the everyday grind of his soldier's life in Stafford.
The Union corporal's foremost concerns were getting enough to eat, not getting sick, and getting back home in one piece.
But his hardships and those of 120,000 comrades are now memorialized by a historical marker placed last week in eastern Stafford, in the midst of one of the campsites they occupied that terrible winter of 1862-63.
The small tribute, at Brooke Crest and Camp Geary roads, is the latest of several efforts by a local nonprofit to recognize Union soldiers' long-ago presence in eastern Stafford.
The Friends of Stafford Civil War Sites has been working since 2005 with Brooke Ridge subdivision's builder, SYG Associates, and Stafford County to commemorate the camps and defenses that historians say was then--except for New Orleans--the South's largest city. Some 120,000 Union troops lived in eastern Stafford from after the Battle of Fredericksburg until the army marched toward Gettysburg.
FSCWS volunteers have devoted hundreds of hours and SYG has spent tens of thousands of dollars to research, preserve and memorialize some of what little remains of the soldiers' winter quarters.
The home builder has named one subdivision, Sentinel Ridge, and several roads as a nod to the Union troops. The newest lane, Camp Geary Road, is named for Brig. Gen. John Geary, commander of the Union 12th Corps' 2nd Division, which camped in the vicinity of Sentinel Ridge and Brooke Ridge subdivisions.
"We're more than just passing through," Stafford resident Al Loy, SYG's sales manager, said of the company's work. "We want to leave behind a legacy."
The new marker honors men of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, 12th Corps who likely camped on the site, which sprawled down a high hill near Aquia Landing, the bustling rail-and-river depot that supplied the army.
SYG, based in Nokesville, donated a 2-acre easement on the campsite to Stafford for posterity. The land is now posted against trespassing and relic hunting, warned Glenn Trimmer, a FSCWS board member.
SYG also sponsored investigations by FSCWS, which excavated the site, finding abundant proof of the troops' time in what the some of the men themselves called the "Valley Forge" of their army's war years.
The friends' additional research documented the 12th Corps camps, burrowing down to the unit level. That's how FSCWS President D.P. Newton, founder of the private White Oak Museum in Stafford, found Cpl. Engle's letter home to his wife, Charlotte.
It is typical of the soldiers' letters from the Stafford camps--a mix of homesickness, bravado and mundane.
A copy of Engle's heart-tugging letter, replete with creative spelling, is on display with period photos and excavated artifacts at the Brooke Ridge information center in Sentinel Ridge.
SYG's center is near the site of the Union army's Redoubt No. 3, which was inadvertently bulldozed during land clearing. A large granite monument, financed by SYG, was placed nearby in September 2006.
"That monument, multiple historical markers and recent cooperation between the FSCWS, local developers and the county show just how far we've come since then," Trimmer said. "We all learned some tough lessons."
The group's newest project, closer to Brooke, eclipses its previous ones. FSCWS is raising money and in-kind donations to construct a public park that will preserve and interpret several Union fortifications and other historic sites.
fscws.org bit.ly/whiteoak Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
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