Confederate Fort Collier Is Purchased
By Deborah Fitts
- May 2002 - WINCHESTER, Va.
A 10-acre parcel in the Shenandoah Valley that
includes the remains of Confederate Fort Collier, which built
in 1861, was purchased March 28 by a local preservation group.
"I'm very excited, and looking forward to the challenge
of making this match our dreams," said Katherine Whitesell,
president of the Fort Collier Civil War Center.
The $500,000 purchase was the culmination of nearly three years
of effort by Whitesell to preserve the site, which lies on Route
11, the Valley Pike, just north of the Winchester city limits.
The fort guarded the entrance to the city, as well as the adjacent
rail line, today part of the CSX system.
The nonprofit group bought the land from developer and supporter
John Scully IV. Funding sources included the federal Land &
Water Conservation Fund ($166,000), Scully ($125,000), and the
Civil War Preservation Trust ($10,000), as well as more than
300 local donors.
The center made the purchase although still $29,000 short of
having the full amount. Whitesell said they will carry debt
for one year.
According to Whitesell, the "very dramatic" fortifications
were built during three months in the first year of the war,
under the command of a Lt. Collier. They are today sheltered
by mature trees, and form a roughly triangular shape around
a house that was rebuilt in 1867 to replace one that stood on
the site during the war.
The fort saw the "culmination" of the battle of Third
Winchester, according to Whitesell, when, on Sept. 19, 1864,
thousands of Union cavalry swept down the pike from the north,
scattering ahead of them Confederates under Gen. Jubal Early.
Historian Brandon Beck of Shenandoah University in Winchester,
vice president of the center's board of directors, called the
attack "the largest cavalry charge in American history."
The rout repre-sented the death knell for Confederate hopes
of holding the Valley, he said.
In the next few months the group will renovate the house to
create "a community-oriented place," Whitesell said,
including a small museum, a reading room, and a place for seminars
and other Civil War-related activities.
Center board member William Layton, of Boyce, Va., and Washington,
D.C., plans to loan to the center some of the Civil War memorabilia
that he has spent half a century collecting.
Whitesell is active with the McCormick Civil War Institute at
Shenandoah University, and had originally envisioned Fort Collier
as a home for the institute. "We still hope to partner
with the university, but it's not definite," she said.
The site was most recently an active farm, and includes pastures,
a large barn, and outbuildings. Zoned industrial, the property
is part of an undeveloped industrial park; two developers own
two ad-ditional parcels of 6 and 10 acres.
The center is planning for its third annual "Cavalry Returns
to Fort Collier" event Sept. 21. The day of living history
has attracted about 150 cavalrymen in the past, Whitesell said,
and includes tours of the fort.
The Fort Collier Civil War Center Inc. boasts about 350 members.
More information is available from Whitesell at (540) 667-5572.
