ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990                   TAG: 9003122861
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ARNOLD, MD.                                LENGTH: Short

MARKER SOUGHT FOR BLACK UNION SOLDIERS

Retired Army Col. William De Shields is battling government bureaucracy to place a marker at the Virginia site where 3,000 black Union soldiers battled Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate troops in 1864.

In the battle at New Market Heights, outside Richmond, the Confederates were protected in trenches behind trees felled to slow the Union advance. When the Union troops' white officers were wounded, the black soldiers pressed on, grabbing Old Glory whenever flag bearers fell, injured or dead.

Today no highway marker or landmark designates the New Market Heights battlefield. De Shields wants to change that.

"Visibility of that type of bravery should be a first priority," he said. "There should be something there to indicate a battle took place at that location." - Associated Press 


 by CNB