Trevilian Station Group Saves 3 More Sites, Needs Help
January 2005

TREVILIANS, Va. - The Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation (TSBF) recently completed its third important acquisition within the past year, bringing the total acreage now owned by the group to 632 acres. As it raises funds for the latest purchases, totaling 178 acres for $352,000, and future acquisitions, the foundation is turning to the Civil War community for help.

According to TSBF founder and current vice-president Gerald "Jerry" Harlow, the first acquisition in late 2003 was an 8.424-acre parcel which fronted on the historic Fredericksburg Road (Route 613). The property is the area where Hart's South Carolina Battery was nearly captured on June 11, 1864, and was only saved by Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton's famous charge leading the Citadel Cadets. The property may very well contain this important landmark.

TSBF purchased the $42,000 property from a local Realtor, who was advertising the property's development potential. As many as four homes could have been built on parcel, which is overgrown open field.

Earlier this summer, TSBF purchased the 114-acre Gentry Farm, the heart of the Federal position on the second day of the battle, June 12, 1864.

Harlow says the second-growth wooded farm, which cost $140,000, gives TSBF one of the most important sites on the entire battlefield, the position that the Union cavalry under Gen. Philip Sheridan took that day opposite the railroad. The Confederate forces had used the railroad as fortifications to fend off attack after attack. It was from the Gentry property that the Confederate artillery as well as a flank attack forced the retreat of the Union forces as the second day of battle drew to a close.

In September, TSBF purchased 56 wooded acres from Jim Ogg, a relative of the family that lived in the Ogg House, the Confederate position on the second day. The original farmhouse is on a nearby private parcel.

The Ogg farm was the position of Confederate artillery as well as the dismounted troopers who fought the Union forces across the Virginia Central Railroad, at the spot that became known as the "Bloody Angle" to the cavalrymen who fought there.

These three purchases were the results of years of negotiations by Harlow. The purchases were financed through grants from Louisa County, the Commonwealth of Virginia, private donations, and financial assistance from the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT). Money to help reimburse part of the cost of these purchases has been applied for from the American Battlefield Protection Program.

The TSBF previously bought five parcels totaling 411 acres. Harlow says that 2,000 to 3,000 acres of the battlefield are core and the site of actual fighting and worth saving.

The central Virginia battlefield is off I-84 between Charlottesville and Richmond. Seven Virginia Civil War Trails signs interpret the site and a self-guided tour is available on the TSBF Web site listed below. The group has been trying to get state approval for a historic site sign on the interstate.

TSBF Inc. is a 501c3 local preservation group founded in October 1996. Harlow says it started out with no assets and only the faint hope of preserving one of the most important Civil War cavalry battlefields. Trevilian Station has the distinction of being the largest "all-cavalry" battle fought in the Western Hemisphere.

TSBF President Kathy Stiles praised Harlow's efforts and the financial support of CWPT and the county, state and federal funding. "All of our American battlefields are in danger, but together we are proving that preservation is possible," she said.

Donations to help defray the cost of recent purchases and to purchase more battlefield land are desperately needed since there is intense development pressure from the Charlottesville-Fredericksburg-Richmond triangle, said Stiles. Membership is open to anyone. For more information, call Stiles at (540) 967-1832 or Harlow at (434) 589-8989 or visit www.trevilianbattlefield.org

Donations may be sent to Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation Inc., P.O. Box 124, Trevilians, VA 23170.