Kaine, lawmakers
Gov. Tim Kaine will be the keynote speaker tomorrow at a news conference on battlefield preservation in the Old Dominion.
Kaine will visit historic Slaughter Pen Farm on the Fredericksburg battlefield, where Union forces briefly broke through Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's line before being repulsed during the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862.
Joining Kaine will be Del. Bill Howell, R-Stafford, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates; state Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania; and Civil War Preservation Trust President James Lighthizer.
Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the state Department of Historic Resources, will emcee the event.
Slaughter Pen Farm is one of many historic sites that have benefited from the Virginia Historic Battlefield Preservation Fund, created by the commonwealth in the Kaine administration's first year.
Kaine and lawmakers will review this public-private partnership's accomplishments and discuss the challenges that remain. The event will begin at 10 a.m.
The public is invited. People are urged to arrive early, by 9:30 a.m., since there is only one entrance to the farm on Tidewater Trail (Routes 2 and 17) south of Fredericksburg in Spotsylvania County. The farm lane is just south of Shannon Airport.
--Clint Schemmer