By CLINT SCHEMMER

Every schoolchild knows of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.

Perhaps one in 200 knows of Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, portrayed in the 1989 film "Glory."

Hardly anyone has heard of Andrew Weaver or Pvt. George Washington and their unit, the 23rd Infantry Regiment, United States Colored Troops.

Some local residents want to change that. They're dusting off a forgotten chapter of the Civil War here, a piece of the narrative with national significance.

The 23rd fought the 11th Virginia Cavalry in Spotsylvania County on May 15, 1864--the first under-orders combat between black Union troops and Confederates in Virginia north of the James River.

"This small engagement has huge symbolic importance," said Noel Harrison, a historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

The foot soldiers of the 23rd, which had been hastily pressed into action from duty guarding supply wagons in the Union army's rear at Chancellorsville, prevailed against horsemen of Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginia.

It's a story pieced together over many years. It's only recently come into public view via the park staff's blog, Mysteries and Conundrums, and Spotsylvania historian John F. Cummings III's site, the Spotsylvania Civil War Blog.

On Saturday, people can meet a few soldiers of the newly reconstituted 23rd in the unit's debut at the John J. Wright Educational & Cultural Center Museum in Spotsylvania Courthouse.

Cummings proposed creating the re-enactment unit, telling National Park Service historian Steward Henderson that it would be a shame for the 23rd's actions to go unheralded, particularly in 2014, the 150th anniversary of its engagement.

Cummings and Henderson signed up, and were quickly joined by the Rev. Hashmel Turner, a former Fredericksburg City Council member; retired Army Col. Horace McGaskill Jr. of Spotsylvania; Roger C. Braxton Jr., chairman of the Wright Museum's board of directors; and Fredericksburg historian Jimmy Price, who blogs at The Sable Arm. The cadre is actively recruiting members, particularly younger people.

This weekend, they will be at the Wright Museum for the 23rd's first public program, helping host a lecture by John Hennessy, chief historian of the national park, on slaves who escaped to freedom when the Union army advanced into the area in the spring of 1862.