Development Threatens Chancellorsville
By Deborah Fitts
FREDERICKSBURG, Va.

A massive commercial and residential development is proposed for a significant portion of the Chancellorsville battlefield, but officials of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park say there is little they can do to stop it.

According to Superintendent Sandy Rives, amorphous proposals for 600,000 square feet of office space, stores, 130 homes and an 18-hole golf course "will consume a major portion of the May 1 battlefield." But since the 800-acre tract is outside the park boundary, the park's role is limited to "providing comment," Rives said. "I'm not in a position to just say no," he said.

The property was rezoned last year from agricultural to commercial use by the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors. It lies on the north side of Route 3, just east of the Chancellorsville unit of the park. Rives noted that "mitigation" is likely to be required of the developer because of the historic nature of the property and the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act.

While there was as yet "no consensus" as to what that mitigation might comprise, he suggested that it could take the form of a 40-acre buffer "enough of a viewshed "to allow the public to understand what occurred there."

The nonprofit Central Virginia Battlefields Trust was also exploring purchase opportunities. Park historian Bob Krick said the tract represents "the whole first day's fighting at Chancellorsville," May 1, 1863, when 10,000 troops battled much of the day under Union Gen. Joseph Hooker and Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. "This is Hooker coming out to meet Lee at Zoan Church and Lee pushing him back all day long," Krick said. That night Lee met for the last time with Gen. Stonewall Jackson to plan Jackson's famous flank march, whose stunning outcome ã and Jackson's mortal wounding ã overshadowed the events of May 1.

Rives acknowledged that the tract was not added to the park during boundary expansions a decade ago, expansions which brought an additional 2000 acres to the park. "Political reasons," rather than reasons of history, governed the lands chosen at that time for inclusion, he said. That is, the land involving Jackson's flank march was deemed more "politically acceptable" than land like this tract, which is closer to rapidly growing Fredericksburg.

Rives said the owner and developer of the 800-acre tract, John Mullins, has cited $30 million as a sale price for the property. "That's so unfeasible that all I can try to do is save a small portion" of it through mitigation, he said. "I hate to see it happen," said Rives of the planned development. "But I've got 2000 acres within our boundary I'm trying to buy and protect. All I can do is state our opposition and try to get some mitigation."