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On eve of battle's 145th anniversary, Duvall, lawmakers plea for preservation at The Wilderness
By Clint Schemmer Academy Award-winner Robert Duvall added star power yesterday to the fierce fight over development at The Wilderness, weighing in for historic preservation. The actor, speaking on the Civil War battlefield in Orange County, said he'll do whatever he can to help in "chasing out" a Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed near the entrance to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Duvall spoke from the porch of Ellwood, a historic house where his ancestor Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee consoled wounded troops during the war. The Virginia resident was joined by two congressmen whose states' troops suffered great losses in the Battle of the Wilderness--fought 145 years ago today. Duvall, who portrayed Lee in the movie "Gods and Generals," said he holds no grudge against Wal-Mart but believes in "capitalism with sensitivity." Likewise, Reps. Peter Welch of Vermont and Ted Poe of Texas also said they don't oppose Wal-Mart's growth, just its choice of a tract on the edge of the battlefield for its 138,000-square-foot store and an associated retail center. All three men at yesterday's press conference--joined by Zann Miner, president of the local Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield--urged the Arkansas-based retail giant to choose another site along State Route 3. "The question for Wal-Mart, which has five stores within 20 miles of here, is whether it needs another store to be sited on this cathedral of sacrifice," Rep. Welch told the 150-some people assembled outdoors in the rain for the event. Union and Confederate forces suffered 29,000 casualties in the May 5-6, 1864, engagement. The first face-off between Lee and the Union's Ulysses S. Grant, it launched the Overland Campaign, which eventually led to Lee's surrender at Appomattox. "There were 160,000 troops, Union and Confederate, who fought in the Battle of the Wilderness," Poe said. "This is the number of troops that we have in Afghanistan and Iraq combined, on that one battlefield." Earlier, the congressmen toured the battlefield with National Park Service historians and paid their respects to the places where their states' soldiers held hotly contested ground. Vermont and Texas each have placed granite monuments at those sites.
Mr. Duvall has struck exactly the right tone. Wal-Mart will gladly bulldoze local shops, destroy local economies, and pave over the countryside in order to present Americans with Chinese tennis shoes and other spurious goods. This is no bargain.
King George may be the one place on earth that has more stupid rednecks than Orange County
If Orange does not want it K.G. will take it!!!
by reducing the miles the local folks have to drive to get to one.
Wal-mart attracts the back-woods inbred types that Orange county harbors. Where else besides orange county and wal-mart can you see acid wash genes and mullets?
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