At Wilderness
Walmart Asks Special-Use Permit;
253 Historians Want New Location
(January 2009 Civil War News)

ORANGE COUNTY, Va. — Within days of Walmart applying for a special-use permit to build a 138,000-square-foot supercenter adjacent to the Wilderness Battlefield, 253 historians sent a letter imploring Walmart Stores President and CEO Lee Scott to reconsider the location.

“There are many places in central Virginia to build a commercial development, but there is only one Wilderness Battlefield. Please respect our great nation’s history and move your store farther away from this historic site and National Park,” their Dec. 10 letter concluded.

The giant retailer seeks a permit for the supercenter and nine other stores on 53 acres. Historians and preservationists fear the project would encourage additional development and increased traffic that would impact the battlefield park.

The letter signers include well-known figures such as David M. McCullough, Ken Burns and Ed Bearss, many authors, such as James McPherson, Robert K. Krick, Gary Gallagher and James I. Robertson, and National Park Service (NPS), museum and academic historians from around the country.

Said Bearss, who is NPS chief historian emeritus, “The Battle of the Wilderness was a transcendental event in the Civil War. Arguably, as a battle, it was more important than such household words as the ‘Battle of Gettysburg’ and ‘The Siege of Vicksburg.’”

Accompanying the historians’ letter was one by Civil War Preservation Trust President James Lighthizer, written on behalf of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, a group of eight regional and national organizations with hundreds of thousands of members who are dedicated to protecting the historic integrity of the Wilderness Battlefield.

Lighthizer wrote, “These scholars, like the member groups of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, feel strongly that the juxtaposition of a Walmart supercenter immediately adjacent to a national park is inappropriate, particularly since it would stand at the literal gateway to the park, dwarfing the limited commercial development present in the area. Virtually every reverent visitor to this hallowed ground will pass under its shadow.”

Lighthizer added his dismay that corporation spokespersons at Orange County meetings said the company would not consider other locations. “The inclusion of plaques or other interpretive media within the store simply cannot compensate for the destruction of the historic ground itself, nor can it have any impact on the degradation of the park visitor experience that large-scale development will inherently produce.”

Gordon Rhea, author of The Battle of the Wilderness and In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee: The Wilderness through Cold Harbor, disputes any claim that the ground Walmart is eying lacks historic significance.

“The proposed Walmart site lies near the intersection of the wartime Germanna Plank Road and the Orange Turnpike,” he said. “This was the nerve center of the Union army. This land served as the heart of the Union Fifth Corps’ encampments and lies within the shadow of Grant’s and Meade’s headquarters. It is truly hallowed ground.”

The Battle of the Wilderness was fought May 5 and 6, 1864. It marked the first time Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant faced each other in battle. Nearly 29,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or captured in those two days.

The full text of the historians’ letter can be read at: www.civilwar.org/walmart08/historianletter.htm