THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701250272
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG, VA. LENGTH: 54 lines
Nearly 135 years after the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Federals have finally captured a Confederate position that was impregnable to Northern troops in 1862.
A 9-acre parcel of land that includes Willis Hill, which Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee used to defend Fredericksburg, will be added to a national park. A college had wanted the site, but the National Park Service and preservation won a bidding war earlier this month.
``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.
On Dec. 13, 1862, about 35,000 Northern troops marched across a 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 small plain. Including a fight south of the town, the North suffered 13,000 casualties, to about 4,500 for the South.
If the Battle of Fredericksburg showed the folly of a frontal assault, a modern-day fight over Willis Hill revealed the effectiveness of a rear-guard action.
Willis Hill 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 a national park and a Civil War cemetery. On the opposite side of the hill lies Brompton, the home of the president of Mary Washington College.
And when the New York-based Daughters of Wisdom, the Catholic order that owned the land, agreed to sell, a bidding war ensued.
The school offered $1.5 million for the property, which it planned to use for an alumni center, Executive Vice President Marjorie Poyck said.
Late last year the Park Service asked the Daughters of Wisdom to hold off on the sale.
John Mitchell and the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust tried to persuade the college to let go of the most crucial section of the hill, or at least guarantee that the land wouldn't be developed inappropriately.
``They weren't willing to do that,'' Mitchell said.
The college then offered $1.65 million, and Mitchell called in reinforcements from 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,'' Mitchell said. ``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.''