Preservationist Annie Snyder Dies At 80
By Deborah Fitts
September 2002

MANASSAS, Va. — When Annie Snyder died of pneumonia on July 19, after a long struggle with the debilitating effects of diabetes, the headline on the front page of the Washington Post was one for the ages: “Annie Snyder Dies at 80: Won Battle of Manassas.”

She would have loved it. The hard-driving former Marine spearheaded a nationwide effort in 1988 that saved more than 500 acres of battlefield from the jaws of development. Ultimately Congress seized the land in a highly unusual “taking,” and the plight of unprotected Civil War battlefields made headline news nationwide.

“It was the seminal event in modern battlefield preservation,” said John Hennessy, leading authority on the battle of Second Manassas and acting superintendent at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Historian and reenactor Brian Pohanka, who served on Snyder’s Save the Battlefield Coalition (SBC) during the Manassas fight, echoed Hennessy’s assessment of Snyder’s importance.

“She was honored and revered” for her role,” Pohanka said. “I’m glad that in her lifetime she knew that people appreciated her. That’s her place in history, and it’s a not-inconsiderable place.”

Battlefield preservationist Ed Wenzel, also on the SBC board, first met Snyder in 1987, when the Washington Post broke the news that a major shopping mall was slated for the unprotected property.

“Annie had a lot of pluses going for her,” recalled Wenzel. Her cattle farm adjoined the battlefield, giving her legal standing. Also, she had long been active in the community, agitating for preservation and supporting a 1980 battlefield boundary expansion, and so had a depth of knowledge of the county, its residents and its power centers.

A grandmother and a farmer who threw her share of hay bales “and could drop a four-letter word with the best of them,” Wenzel said, Snyder would grow emotional at the notion of desecrating what was to her hallowed ground.

A camera shot of her mascara-rimmed eyes welling with tears, as she dabbed her cheek with a crumpled Kleenex, was an indelible memento of the Manassas fight.

Wenzel hailed Snyder’s “spunk” and her “love of country and heritage.” In a note to her husband and family after her death, Wenzel called the indomitable Snyder “a patron for all who face an impossible task.”

Pohanka said, “She was absolutely determined — gritty — but also sentimental. It was an attitude that was based on absolute admiration and devotion and love for the soldiers who gave their lives on that ground.

“But you don’t save battlefields out of a sense of sentimentality. She went in with a lot of guts. She was not bowed down by the challenges and the potential for failure. It made her an extremely charismatic and effective leader. She was the commanding general.”

Snyder had a powerful personality, exuded unquestioned authority, and was unmatched in her ability to marshal and direct her forces. She relished nothing better than defeating developers — along with the local officials who did their bidding.

“She could operate on almost any level,” said Hennessy, who provided SBC with historical information. “She could cry on camera, but also scare the bejezus out of you by the force of her personality. I never met another person like her.”

Attorney Tersh Boasberg, whom SBC tapped to wage the all-important Manassas legal battle, said Snyder led a watershed movement in American history.

“It showed the depth of feeling in the U.S. for saving Civil War battlefields,” said Boasberg. He recalled Virginia Sen. John Warner telling him that “in all his years in Congress he never received as much mail” as he did over Manassas.

The costly seizure by the government also demonstrated that this was not the best way to save battlefields, Boasberg noted. “It showed that we had to do it in an organized, proactive way, and not as an ad hoc response to each crisis.”

As a direct consequence of Manassas, Congress created the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission to identify the nation’s most significant and threatened battlefields, and federal funding to save them soon followed.

But it couldn’t have happened without Snyder. The media flocked to “Stonewall Annie,” who was photographed with a shotgun at the ready. She mustered an army of volunteers.

“Her whole house was a battle station,” Boasberg remembered.

In the end, Snyder and her army prevailed. “Had it gone the other way,” Pohanka said, “it would have had very detrimental ramifications” nationwide. “It would have encouraged the developers. But they saw they could be defeated.”

Looking back from the perspective of nearly 15 years, Pohanka said, “No Civil War battlefield preservation issue has garnered as much publicity as that fight. She will continue to be an inspiration.”