Take one-time tour of part of Chancellorsville battlefield

By RUSTY DENNEN

The public tomorrow will get a one-time tour of some of the most famous terrain of the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville.

The tour will follow a program at noon on the 85-acre Wagner tract, which will include a bill-signing by Gov. Bob McDonnell and an announcement of additional grants to two battlefield-preservation groups.

"We're very excited to showcase the Wagner tract and to spur people on to further stewardship action," said Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

The department provided $706,305 in matching funds to the Civil War Preservation Trust toward the $2.1 million purchase of the Wagner farm. The CWPT is chipping in $893,695; the remaining $500,000 comes from a federal Transportation Enhancement Grant.

The CWPT leased back the property to the Wagners, who continue to live there.

The land includes 2,000 feet of frontage on the north shoulder of historic Orange Plank Road, and lies within the Chancellorsville battlefield.

There, on May 2, 1863, Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson led a flanking attack that turned the tide of the battle in favor of the South.

Historian Robert K. Krick has called the Wagner tract "the second-most-important [battlefield] land in the country" behind a key parcel on the Richmond battlefield.

Preservationists had been talking to Frank Wagner, a Fredericksburg veterinarian, for several years about protecting the land.

"The Wagner farm is preserved, but it will not be open to the public and there's no plan to do that," said Jim Campi, spokesman for the CWPT. For now, "This will be the only opportunity for the public to get out there."

Campi says the rolling land "is a picturesque Spotsylvania County farm."

Anyone interested in the tour is asked to be at the Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center in time to board shuttle buses to the nearby Wagner property starting at 11:15 a.m.

Kilpatrick said the program will begin promptly at noon.

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WHO: Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Civil War Preservation Trust, Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation WHAT: Program on Civil War battlefield protection efforts and tour of Wagner tract WHEN: Program begins at noon tomorrow; tour follows WHERE: State Route 3 east of Wilderness Baptist DETAILS: Be at Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center, 9001 Plank Road, by 11:15 to board shuttle buses to the site.

The Battle of Chancellorsville began May 1, 1863, and lasted almost three days. It was considered Gen. Robert E. Lee's greatest victory.

Lee divided his army in the face of superior Union forces, sending Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson on a 12-mile flanking march around the Army of the Potomac. After the Confederate rout of the Union 11th Corps, Jackson was accidentally shot by his own men and died five days later.

Date published: 4/19/2010

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