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The public toured Slaughter Pen Farm for the first time after yesterday's announcement of a $2 million federal grant.
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The Civil War Preservation Trust is partway to its goal of raising $12 million to preserve this land on Tidewater Trail that was a key part of the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg. |
RELATED: Read the speech read during a Slaughter Pen walking tour on Monday.
By RUSTY DENNEN
S DIRK Kempthorne was thanking the Civil War Preservation Trust for saving a key part of the Battle of Fredericksburg, a small American flag behind the podium fluttered in the breeze, then toppled over.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Kempthorne paused during the ceremony at Slaughter Pen Farm yesterday morning as several people rushed forward to reposition the Stars and Stripes.
He didn't miss a beat.
"I don't know how you felt," he told the 160 people gathered on the field under a crisp blue sky when the flag hit the ground. "But how many flags fell?" he wondered about Dec. 13, 1862, when the Spotsylvania County cornfield earned its name. It became known as the "slaughter pen" after the Union Army failed to dislodge dug-in Confederates on a nearby ridge.
Kempthorne was among dignitaries who spoke at the farm on Tidewater Trail, east of Shannon Airport. He was there to announce that the federal government was chipping in $2 million toward CWPT's $12 million purchase of the property.
Kempthorne, a former U.S. senator and former Idaho governor, praised the preservation group for its efforts to save Civil War sites. His great-grandfather, Pvt. Charles Kempthorne, fought with a Wisconsin infantry unit and was wounded at Antietam, Md.
"Abraham Lincoln said any nation that does not honor its heroes will not endure. Today, we honor our heroes," Kempthorne said.
The $2 million is part of a grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The Washington-based CWPT purchased the property, known locally as the Pierson Farm, in June. It was the highest price ever paid by a private preservation group for Civil War land.
CWPT borrowed the money from SunTrust Bank, which gave it favorable terms. CWPT has been hustling to raise the money to cover the purchase.
In addition to the $2 million pledged by Kempthorne, CWPT has raised about $1 million from its membership, and the Fredericksburg-based Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has pledged another $1 million.
Money also is available from the Virginia Civil War Sites Preservation Fund, created during this year's General Assembly session. The legislature appropriated $500,000 for the program and CWPT can apply for a grant.
House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford County, and State Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, were instrumental in creating that program, and were present yesterday.
"This is a great moment--just a tremendous opportunity to put aside land so historic and so valuable," Howell said. The event was the culmination of public and private initiative, which the state supports.
Houck said the need to preserve important sites is evident.
"This is my home county. When I moved here, there were 20,000 people. Now it's in excess of 100,000. Development creates economic development, but it also encroaches on hallowed grounds," he said.
CWPT President Jim Lighthizer said only a concerted effort made the purchase possible.
"So this is truly a remarkable event. It didn't happen by accident; it was a partnership of a lot of people," he said, reading a long list of thank yous including Spotsylvania County officials.
"We're about where we wanted to be at this point, about a third of the way, maybe a little more toward our fundraising goal," said Jim Campi, a CWPT spokesman.
CWPT members Fred and Susan Forman drove down from Fairfax with their dogs, Magellan and Molly, to see the trust's newest acquisition.
After seeing development in and around Fairfax, "battlefield preservation is important to us," Fred Forman said.
Frank O'Reilly, a National Park Service historian, put the importance of Slaughter Pen in perspective, telling the crowd, "Union and Confederate soldiers paired off across this land at the mid-point between the opposing capitals of Washington and Richmond. This was the only point where the Union army had a legitimate chance at victory.
"This is where the Battle of Fredericksburg was won and lost. Once the Union lost here, there was nothing it could do to alter the outcome. "
He then led a two-hour walking tour of the 208-acre site where more than 9,000 men were killed, wounded or missing that day--over half of them in a corn-stubble field behind where an old farmhouse now stands.
Five Union soldiers earned the Medal of Honor on the killing fields of Slaughter Pen Farm.
And O'Reilly noted this is where Gen. Robert E. Lee, after the battle, uttered the words, "It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it."
To reach RUSTY DENNEN:
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
