Shenandoah Valley Foundation To Buy 3rd Winchester Tract
By Deborah Fitts
December 2003

WINCHESTER, Va. - One of the most significant tracts of battlefield in the Shenandoah Valley will be preserved thanks to a decision Dec. 9 by the City of Winchester to sell 100 acres of the 3rd Winchester battlefield to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.

"We are just thrilled," said the foundation's executive director, Howard Kittell. He noted that the Sept. 19, 1864, battle was the largest in the Valley in terms of troops engaged - 55,000 - and casualties sustained.

The property, a couple of miles northeast of the city center off Redbud Run Road, is in an area under intense pressure from industrial development, making the preservation all the more significant, Kittell said.

The tract adjoins, on one side, another 37 acres the foundation bought a year and a half ago, plus, on the other side, land belonging to the Civil War Preservation Trust. Altogether, the preserved properties will total 336 contiguous acres.

The 100 acres surrounds Hackwood, a historic farm on 10 acres that will continue in private ownership. The city excluded from the sale Fay Spring and 11 acres on the west edge of the property, in order to retain a possible future public water supply.

The $520,000 for the purchase came from funds appropriated to the foundation by Congress. "We had it tucked away waiting for this project," said Kittell. The foundation approached the city about the land a year ago, and in July made an offer of $600,000. The city's decision to keep the spring reduced the price.

The tract is west of and adjacent to the famous Middle Field, where the two armies struggled back and forth during the afternoon of Sept. 19. Confederates fell back onto this property from the fighting, and Confederate artillery was ranged along the Hackwood driveway, which crosses the city's land.

The Trust has approached the foundation about collaborating on an interpretive plan for the entire property. The Trust received a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program for the plan, and Kittell said his group has set aside money for interpretation as well. He said he hoped that signage and walking trails may be ready by late next year.

Kittell noted that 3rd Winchester was one of two battlefields in the Valley that the National Park Service deemed worthy of becoming a national park. The other, the site eventually chosen for the park, is Cedar Creek.