Valley Foundation Buys Land At 3 Battlefields

By Deborah Fitts

NEW MARKET, Va. — “The stars are converging right now,” said Howard Kittell.

The executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation could be accused of understatement. During one three-week period in July and early August, the nonprofit announced major acquisitions at the Cedar Creek, Port Republic and Tom’s Brook battlefields totaling nearly 600 acres.

Cedar Creek

At Cedar Creek, the foundation announced July 21 the purchase of a 137-acre portion of Fair Meadows Farm, which lies inside the boundary of the new Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park. The property was the site of the opening phases of the Oct. 19, 1864, battle, when at dawn Confederate forces launched a devastating surprise attack on Union troops.

The foundation used $620,000 in federal funding to purchase the property in two phases, closing on one parcel last December and another in July. The 137 acres were a portion of a 335-acre tract owned by the Powers family of Winchester, who will continue to own and operate the remainder of the farm.

The Warren County property is south of I-66 and north of the confluence of Cedar Creek and the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. Kittell said it offers “spectacular views” of Signal Knob at the north end of Massanutten Mountain, the site of a Confederate signal station.

Kittell praised the owners, saying the foundation “depends on landowners like the Powers family who care about their heritage and want to see their land and the battlefields protected. Without willing landowners who share our concerns, the foundation’s land protection efforts would be dead in the water.”

He said the foundation will work with the National Park Service to incorporate the property into the park’s interpretive plan, which is now being drafted. The foundation now owns 271 acres inside the park boundary. Other park partners own 845 acres, for a total of 1,116 acres protected out of 3,500 acres inside the park boundary.

At Port Republic, on Aug. 2 the foundation announced the purchase of a conservation easement on 220 acres within the core area of the battlefield. Located east of U.S. 340 in Rockingham County, the property is near the site of “the Coaling” at the western base of the Blue Ridge, an elevated position where Union artillery were posted during the battle June 9, 1862.

According to Kittell the land represents about 10 percent of the 2,145-acre core area at Port Republic, which was the final battle of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s famed 1862 Valley Campaign. Across this property Confederates launched repeated attacks against the Union artillery at the Coaling, finally forcing them from the position and turning the guns on the Northerners.

“The battle of Port Republic and ultimately Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign were decided in and around this parcel,” declared a foundation press release.

The easement, which will prevent development on the property in perpetuity, cost $520,000. The foundation paid about $500,000 of the total and the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), which owns an adjoining 10 acres at the Coaling, kicked in about $30,000 to pay for legal costs and other preliminary work that allowed the easement to go through. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation will hold the easement on the property.

Kittell said the transaction represents the foundation’s “first major easement in the Valley.” He praised the landowners, the Kaylor family, for their patience during the five-year process to close the deal.

While the easement will not allow visitors onto the property, there will “visual access” of the sloping, mostly wooded property from the Coaling and from the highway, Kittell said.

A June 3-4 preservation march [see August issue] employed this property, Kittell said, with reenactors receiving the family’s permission to skirmish across it.

The foundation plans to install an interpretive marker explaining the action later this year or next year, according to Kittell. The tract includes a working forest and several sinkhole ponds, a Valley phenomenon that appears in the area along the western base of the Blue Ridge. Environmentalists prize the intermittently flooding ponds, and in 2000 the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation bought 600 acres nearby to protect the ecosystem.

Tom’s Brook

And at Tom’s Brook in Shenandoah County, the foundation announced July 13 the purchase of 109 acres at the core of the battlefield, the largest piece of the battlefield preserved to date. The tract, bisected by the key battle feature of Jordon Run, lies east of the old Valley Pike (Route 11) just south of the town of Toms Brook. [Editor’s Note: The town and battlefield are spelled differently.]

The land adjoins the north side of 60-acre Shenandoah County Park at Maurertown, which is also core battlefield and which boasts a Civil War Trails marker interpreting Tom’s Brook. Kittell said the foundation hopes in a couple of years to “tie into” the park property and install interpretive trails and parking.

He also noted that the county’s Board of Supervisors, in cooperation with local landowners, in 2004 crafted a preservation plan for the Fisher’s Hill and Tom’s Brook battlefields that made parcel-specific recommendations for protecting the battlefields and Jordon Run.

A continuing collaboration between the county and the foundation “reflects the growing interest by the Board of Supervisors in balancing growth with their ongoing interest in preserving battlefields,” Kittell said.

At a press conference announcing the purchase, Dennis Morris, chairman of the county board, said the county was “extremely pleased that this important part of our history will be protected and available for future generations to experience and enjoy.”

The $1.3 million purchase was made thanks to congressionally approved funding to the foundation. The only other land preserved at Tom’s Brook is 7 acres owned by CWPT. “We have a ways to go yet,” Kittell acknowledged. Of the 2,018-acre core area, 1,672 acres still retain integrity.

Because of tree growth on most of the property over recent decades, Kittell said there is no real public access. “We’ll be looking at how much of the trees to remove,” he said. “The foundation still hasn’t decided internally how much landscape rehabilitation to do. It’s quite expensive.”

One of the largest cavalry battles in the Valley, Tom’s Brook saw 3,000 Confederate troopers eager for revenge against Union cavalry who had been burning barns and mills. However, on Oct. 9, 1864, Federal commander Phil Sheridan ordered his 6,000 horsemen to “whip” the enemy or get whipped themselves.

On this tract were arrayed the two main battle lines under Confederate Gen. Lunsford Lomax and Union Gen. Wesley Merritt. Lomax was positioned along Teaberry Road (Route 650) on the parcel’s southern boundary, opposing Merritt on the north bank of Jordon Run. Fighting see-sawed back and forth across the property until the Confederates were forced to retreat in a humiliating rout beyond Woodstock that was later dubbed the “Woodstock Races.”

Since its creation in 2000, the foundation has protected nearly 1,200 acres at all 10 battlefields in its charge. Kittell said there were currently another 49 preservation projects under way, totaling more than 4,000 acres of core battlefield.