CWPT Needs Funds For Spring Hill
SPRING HILL, Tenn. — Eighty-four acres at Spring Hill Battlefield, site of one of the most controversial episodes of the Civil War, are close to being protected by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), with help from a $1.9 million federal grant. During a Sept. 24 press conference on the grounds of Rippavilla Plantation, attended by U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and the CWPT’s Board Chairman John Nau and President James Lighthizer, terms of the agreement with land owner General Motors LLC (GM) were revealed and a fundraising campaign was launched. Bryan Mitchell, National Park Service Chief of Heritage Preservation Services, announced that the Department of Interior had awarded $1.9 million through the American Battlefield Protection Program. The CWPT must still raise $100,000 to complete the $2 million purchase. “We are going to meet our financial obligation and we are going to save this land,” Nau said. Target date for closing on the property is by the end of November and the battle’s anniversary. Alexander, noting the importance of heritage tourism, said, “The addition of this land gives Rippavilla more ability to attract visitors to Nashville and to our state.” The tract fronts the Columbia Pike where, on the night of Nov. 29, 1864, about 20,000 Union troops slipped past Gen. William Bate’s Army of Tennessee to escape and take an entrenched position with other Federal troops in Franklin. It was the next day during the Battle of Franklin that Confederate Gen. John B. Hood’s Army was virtually destroyed. Rippavilla Plantation was a witness to that night. It is now preserved to its 1860s appearance complete with a Civil War museum displaying family heirlooms and wartime artifacts. Directly north of the plantation property line is the tract where Bate’s division camped while the Federals marched by virtually untouched in what has been called one of the Confederacy’s most costly mistakes of the war. While the pending purchase of the land is exciting for heritage tourists and students of the Civil War, it “keeps our viewshed intact” says Pam Perdue, executive director of Rippavilla Plantation. Since the 1980s when GM built its Saturn plant there, Spring Hill has changed from a farming community to a rapidly growing suburban area of Nashville. As recently as early 2009 there was concern that the tract would be developed commercially as GM moved to divest itself of surplus land holdings. The City of Spring Hill was prepared to annex the land. Recent economic conditions killed the proposed development and the land remained under GM’s control. The company and CWPT entered into a purchase agreement in late June. When the sale is completed 184 battleground acres around the plantation will be preserved. The plantation and adjoining battle land will be in better shape in terms of preservation than could have been imagined just a few years ago. Spring Hill was included on the CWPT’s annual list of endangered battlefields in 2008 and 2009. Rippavilla owns some 90 acres east of the plantation and has a “pretty good buffer south,” says Perdue. CWPT saved about 110 acres farther north a few years ago. The additional tract, where the Union army escaped, is a key part of the battlefield. Perdue has been talking with the CWPT about assisting with the battlefield’s interpretation and development. “We will be involved in the placement of interpretative markers and laying out of the trails,” she says. “We couldn’t be happier and are very thankful. We have the same mission as the Trust,” Perdue says. For more information about CWPT’s fundraising for Spring Hill go to www.civilwar.org/battlefields/springhill/spring-hill-2010.
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