3 New Market Sites Are Preserved
By Deborah Fitts
January 2006
NEW MARKET, Va. — With three purchases, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation has dramatically increased the amount of preserved land at New Market battlefield.
Howard Kittell, the foundation’s executive director, announced in December the acquisition of 192 acres of farmland on both sides of I-81. The new properties, together with the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park, bring to 493 acres the total land protected.
“We’re really thrilled,” said Kittell. “Obviously, these are all properties under threat. The owners wanted to sell them for conservation, but there is always development pressure,” especially in this case when the battlefield extends to the residential and commercial center of New Market.
The three purchases — two completed several months ago but kept under wraps, and the third achieved in mid-December — cost a total of $1,345,000. Most of that, $1,015,000, was paid for out of the federal land-acquisition funding that the foundation receives annually. Another $225,000 was covered by a mortgage.
And $100,000 came from the reenacting community. The Center for Civil War Living History made the gift, employing monies given from the filming of “Gods and Generals,” Kittell said.
On the west side of the interstate, two of the properties, comprising 100 acres and 67 acres, are contiguous to each other and to the state park, creating a tract of battlefield land about a mile long that extends south from the Bushong Farm to the Shirley House. The park and the house — a 2-acre parcel at the corner of Route 211 and the frontage road to the park — belong to Virginia Military Institute (VMI).
The third tract, 25 acres, lies on the east side of I-81, between the interstate and Route 11, the old Valley Pike. VMI also owns a 40-acre property on the east side, and the foundation’s new purchase abuts the VMI land. VMI cadets played a poignant role in the battle, May 15, 1864.
“A fair amount of the battlefield is under I-81,” Kittell said. He said it was “one of the challenges” of interpretation to explain to visitors that battlefield parks rarely encompass an entire battlefield. Actually, the core area of the New Market battle covers 2,261 acres, of which 1,527 acres still retain “sufficient integrity.”
“So about one-third of the core area that has integrity is protected,” Kittell said.
With the acquisitions safely completed, “Our next big project will be to manage them,” said Kittell. He envisioned interpretive trails and signage, and said he was setting up a meeting with park officials in January “to talk about how we coordinate the interpretation.” The foundation will continue to own the properties, but VMI may manage them, he suggested.
Kittell said the interpretive infrastructure will probably not be in place till 2007, but reenactors will be welcome on the new properties during the annual battle of New Market reenactment in May, he said.
The Shirley House, which VMI owns, is home to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation’s offices. The house sits on the site of the wartime home of the Shirley family. The original home burned, and the current brick structure dates from the 1870s, according to Kittell. The Military Institute also owns the top of Shirley’s Hill, to the south, where the battle began.
The new mortgage is the second held by the foundation, following one obtained last April to secure property at Fisher’s Hill. Kittell said the foundation has received grants sufficient to retire the first mortgage, “and we’re working to retire the other.”
