ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 TAG: 9701280041
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG
SOURCE: ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
After 135 years, the Federals finally captured a position key to the Confederates during the Civil War. Land at the crest of a hill that proved impregnable to Northern troops during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg will be added to a national park.
Confederate forces under Gen. Robert E. Lee lined up atop Willis Hill in December 1862, and watched as Northern troops, or Federals, prepared to cross the Rappahannock River and invade Fredericksburg.
On Dec. 13, about 35,000 Northern troops marched wave after wave across an unbroken field toward Confederates tucked safely behind a stone wall or perched atop the hill with their cannons.
Nearly 9,000 Union troops fell dead or wounded on a plain about 800 yards long and 500 yards wide.
Including a larger engagement south of the town, the North suffered 13,000 casualties, to about 4,500 for the South.
``Armies have studied ever since what Lee did there,'' said John Mitchell, leader of a local battlefield preservation group.
If the Battle of Fredericksburg showed the folly of a frontal assault, a modern-day fight over the future of Willis Hill revealed the effectiveness of a rear-guard action.
The National Park Service scored what preservation groups call a victory by raising enough money to buy the battlefield land out from under a rival bidder this month.
``We are obviously very excited. It's unfortunate that two sides both wanted the property, but we are delighted that visitors to the park can now see right where the meat of the fight was,'' said Brian Hall, a historian at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
Willis Hill, part of a ridge above the city called Marye's Heights, has been private property since the war. A Catholic school has been on the land for much of this century.
On one side of the hill the government established the national park and a cemetery where hundreds of anonymous Northern troops are buried.
On the opposite side of the hill lies Brompton, a grand house used as a hospital during the war and now the lushly landscaped home of the president of Mary Washington College.
Both the Park Service and the state-funded college have long eyed the nine-acre plot between their properties. And when the Catholic order that owned the land agreed to sell, something of a bidding war ensued.
``It looked like a natural fit. We were always looking for some additional space,'' said Marjorie Poyck, executive vice president of the college.
The school planned to use the property for an alumni center, she said.
The college offered $1.5 million for the land last fall, and the New York-based Daughters of Wisdom order informally agreed, Poyck said.
Late last year the Park Service asked the order to hold off on the sale.
That's where Mitchell and his fledgling Central Virginia Battlefields Trust came in. Working on behalf of the Park Service, Mitchell said he tried to persuade the college to let go of the most crucial section of the hill, or at least guarantee in writing that the land wouldn't be developed inappropriately.
``They weren't willing to do that,'' Mitchell said. ``They dug in, so we dug in.''
Poyck said the college always intended to use the land responsibly. ``We were very aware of the historical value,'' she said.
The Daughters of Wisdom, meanwhile, raised the price to $1.65 million. The college met the price, and Mitchell called in reinforcements in the form of the nonprofit Civil War Trust.
The Arlington-based Trust pledged $250,000 to help the Park Service match the college's bid. When it was clear the Daughters of Wisdom preferred the Park Service, the college bowed out of the bidding.
``We wanted to stress the community value of this land. We are all linked to the Civil War, and we are all linked to that hill. Every American should be able to walk up on it and see it for themselves,'' Mitchell said.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. A tourist strolls in the national cemetery at theby CNBFredericksburg battlefield near Montfort Academy. Union troops
couldn't capture the area in 1862, but the federal government now
has managed to add it to a national park. color.