(April 2006) RICHMOND, Va. - A 39-acre purchase of the Glendale battlefield is highlighting the efforts of the Richmond Battlefields Association (RBA) to save the sparsely protected battlefields around the Confederate capital.

In late December the 400-member RBA joined forces with the Civil War Preservation Trust, which claims 75,000 members, to buy the tract. RBA board member and Civil War historian Robert K. Krick described the property as "the absolute heart of the battlefield."

The tract lies on the north side of Long Bridge Road. As the 100,000-man Union army under Gen. George McClellan retreated south toward Malvern Hill on the afternoon of June 30, 1862, during the Seven Days' Battles, Confederates, including Alabamians under Cadmus Wilcox, repeatedly attacked Federal forces protecting a key crossroads near Glendale (Frayser's Farm to the Southerners).

The desperate, headlong assaults against Union Gen. George Meade's brigade initially succeeded. But as darkness ended the fighting, Union troops once again held the ground. Meade was wounded twice, Krick noted, and would die of his wounds after the war.

The $700,000 acquisition is just the first of several hundred acres that the Trust is eyeing, according to Trust spokesman Jim Campi.

In fact, according to Richmond National Battlefield Park historian Robert E.L. Krick, the new parcel adds to more than 1,000 acres already protected at the adjoining battlefields of Glendale and Malvern Hill. The notoriously bloody and final battle of the Seven Days took place at Malvern Hill July 1.

Krick said only one unprotected property stands between the new acquisition and other preserved property, creating a half-mile gap.

"The Trust is one parcel away from having three contiguous miles of battlefield," stated Krick. He is the husband of RBA President Julie Krick and son of Robert K. Krick.

RBA has pledged to pay $175,000 of the purchase price. The elder Krick noted that although the five-year-old organization will receive $500,000 later this year as a bequest from the late Brian Pohanka, RBA hopes to raise as much of the money as possible from members and others. Pohanka's gift will serve as "seed money, to spin around again and again," Krick explained.

The Trust's Campi said RBA is using the purchase at Glendale "to help generate enthusiasm for the organization and raise money."

He said half of the $700,000 cost of the tract will be funded by the federal Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program. The Trust and RBA are splitting the other half 50-50. Campi noted that the Trust has its own fundraising appeal under way, and said he hoped to have the purchase paid off by May.

"We're hoping it's the beginning of a much larger campaign" to save additional land associated with the battle, Campi said.

He described the new property as "absolutely pristine." Much of the parcel is densely wooded, as it was at the time of the battle. Some areas would need to be cleared to reflect open ground in 1862.

The tract includes the site of two small homes belonging to members of the free-black Sykes family. The two structures, within sight of each other, were battlefield landmarks and served as hospitals after the fighting. They no longer stand.

A purchase in the 1990s by the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, a predecessor of the Trust, secured 101 acres of the Glendale battlefield. The land now belongs to the National Park Service (NPS).

The 39 acres just acquired lie within NPS's authorized boundary, and the elder Krick said RBA hopes that eventually the Park Service will acquire the parcel. He recalled that the Richmond-area battlefields nearly went unpreserved except for the efforts of historian Douglas Southall Freeman in the 1930s, who organized an effort to purchase key sites - now NPS property.

"No one has done a thing since," Krick observed. "Richmond battlefields by all odds are the least well preserved in the Virginia theater." Krick is also a Trust board member.

RBA has made one prior acquisition, in 2002 buying 10 acres at Fort Harrison.

Donations to support the purchase of the Glendale tract may be made to Richmond Battlefields Association, P.O. Box 13945, Richmond, VA 23225. For those wishing to join the organization, membership dues are $35. More information on RBA and the purchase is available at the group's Web site, www.SaveRichmondBattlefields.org.

A benefit of membership is a quarterly newsletter, but "The main attraction," said Krick, "is doing the right thing."

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