Vermont For Wilderness Committee Seeks To Save Land

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Preservation of a key portion of the Wilderness Battlefield of Northern Virginia, where Vermont suffered its heaviest losses of the Civil War, and the proper honoring of the men who fought there, are the goals of the recently formed Vermont for the Wilderness Committee.

Members include a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, two former Vermont governors, the historian-emeritus of the National Park Service, and a nationally prominent preservation attorney. "This is Vermont's most important Civil War site and some of the most important unprotected battlefield acreage in America," according to Howard Coffin, committee chair, author of two books on Vermont in the Civil War.

He said, "Vermont lost 1234 men in the Wilderness on May 5-6, 1864, and many of them fell on land that remains open to development. It should be part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, and a monument to the Vermonters should stand there."

The committee wants a 500-acre tract in the southwest quadrant of the Brock Road and Plank Road intersection, about 12 miles west of Fredericksburg, Va., added to the park. Committee member Dr. James McPherson, of Princeton, N. J., winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his book Battle Cry of Freedom, and Edwin Cole Bearss, Park Service historian emeritus, recently spoke of the site's importance.

"The fighting that took place in Hamilton's Thicket," said McPherson, "just southeast of the Orange Plank Road and the current national park boundary was some of the most important action in the Battle of the Wilderness." Bearss said, "Longstreet's Flank Attack took place there and it was more important than Stonewall Jackson's the previous year." Former Vermont Governors Philip H. Hoff and Thomas P. Salmon are serving on the committee, as is attorney Tersh Boasberg, of Washington, D. C., a leader of successful fights to save several Virginia battlefields, including Brandy Station, scene of the war's largest cavalry battle.

Also serving are Vermont historians Robert Allen, Jeffrey Marshall and Donald Wickman, former Norwich University President Russell Todd, Federal Judge Franklin S. Billings Jr. and Kelly Nolin, an archivist working to preserve Vermont's military records. At an organizational meeting held recently in Montpelier, Coffin was elected committee chair, attorney Charles Martin, of Montpelier, vice chair, and Susan Limoge, of Montpelier, secretary/treasurer.

In two days of fighting in May 1864, as Ulysses Grant's Overland Campaign began, the Vermont Brigade, in Brig. Gen. George Getty's Division, was nearly decimated in protecting the vital intersection of the Brock and Plank Roads. Loss of the intersection would have meant the sundering of the Army of the Potomac by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

In endorsing the committee's efforts, McPherson said: "After the timely arrival of Longstreet's Corps on the morning of May 6, 1864, had stopped a Union assault that almost broke Confederate lines, Longstreet authorized a late-morning counterattack against the Union left flank south of the Plank Road. Using the cover of an unfinished railroad cut (today the remnants of an abandoned rail line), part of Longstreet's Corps attacked through the thicket, surprising and crumpling the Union flank.

"At the moment of apparent victory, however, confusion and poor visibility in the woods caused Confederate troops emerging from the thicket to fire on other Confederates, including Longstreet, moving forward on the Plank Road. … The steam went out of the Confederate attack and Union commanders stabilized their lines along the Brock Road.
"The Hamilton Thicket tract is a crucial part of the battlefield, essential for understanding an action that threatened Union defeat but ultimately enabled Grant to hold onto the Brock Road and to move south to Spotsylvania on the second step of a journey that led to Appomattox 11 months later."

Hamilton's Thicket is owned by a developer who has long planned a housing development and golf course there. Those plans are now on hold. Congress has placed Hamilton's Thicket within the authorized boundary of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Military Park, clearing the way for adding it to the park. But negotiations between the Park Service and the developer have yet to produce a purchase agreement.

A high priority of the Vermont for the Wilderness Committee will be meeting with U.S. Sen. James M. Jeffords, R-Vt., a leader in congressional efforts to save Civil War battlefields, with James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, and with National Park Service officials.

Bearss, McPherson and Coffin served on the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission that placed the Wilderness high on its list of battlefields that should be preserved.

"This is Vermont's most important Civil War site," according to Coffin. "There's never been a marker of any kind to even indicate that the Vermonters were there. We think it's time to change that."

Also on the committee are Richard Swift, of the Vermont Civil War Hemlocks; Mimi Baird, vice-chair of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation; Msgr. John McSweeney, former Chancellor of the Diocese of Burlington; and John Lord, Johnson State College registrar.

The National Park Service owns a 300-yard strip along the south side of the Plank Road, which encompasses important acreage where the Vermonters fought. But the committee feels that without purchasing the entire Hamilton's Thicket, the fighting in that portion of the Wilderness cannot be properly interpreted.

Soon after the battle, Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Grant, commander of the Vermont Brigade, wrote: "The flag of each regiment, though pierced and tattered, still flaunts in the face of the foe, and noble bands of veterans with thinned ranks, and but few officers to command, still stand by them; and they seem determined to stand so long as there is a man to bear their flag aloft or an enemy on the field."

For information about the Vermont for the Wilderness Committee contact Coffin at (802) 223-1909.